Failure
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: My first Numb3rs fic. Don and his team run up against a mastermind who wants to make the FBI look bad. Story complete. Was it good enough? Should I try writing another?
1. Chapter 1

Usual disclaimer: they own everything, I own nothing. No profits, and not even a lot of satisfaction unless you guys like this. Please?

Failure

By OughtaKnowBetter

The computer-generated voice filled the small room. "I will no longer talk with you. I will only talk to the man in charge." The words were stilted and jerky, translated by the machine into sounds from the demanding keyboard.

Unfortunately, no one knew where that keyboard was located. Whoever was using the keyboard was located somewhere in the Western hemisphere, most likely but not unequivocally in the Los Angeles Basin. And the keyboard userwas most definitely not seated among the recipients of the phone call, in a too small office in the Los Angeles headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Photons streamed in through the window, illuminating the notes that Special Agent Don Eppes was making and bouncing off the silvery surface of Agent David Sinclair's tracing equipment.

"What makes you think that I'm not in charge?" Megan Reeves kept her voice silky smooth, drawing out the caller.

"Many things." It was hard to imagine a computer voice sneering, but the intent came through.

"Like what?"

"You are too stupid."

"Smart enough to have figured out your little clues." Megan got in a jab of her own, trying to see what would shake loose. "Almost caught you this last time. But, of course, that's what you want. Isn't it? You want to be caught. You want to fail."

There was a little pause, then: "I will no longer speak with you. I will only speak with the man who is solving these crimes. Good-bye." Click. The line went dead.

The group seated around the table held their collective breath for nearly a minute before David Sinclair reached over to turn off their own recorder. Light glistened off his head, his arm the only movement around the table while the others contemplated what they had just heard. Even Colby, the most active of them all, the one least likely to sit still, reached for his cold cup of coffee, just to have something to do, and grimaced at the vile taste.

"And that's a wrap," Don Eppes muttered grimly, leaning back in his chair. He tossed his pencil on the table, discouraged. "Nice work, Megan. How did he know that you report up?"

Megan shook her head, her long auburn locks wisping around her shoulders. "I wish I knew. This one isn't behaving the way the profiles say he should."

"Then the profile is wrong." The last member of the group spoke up. "The hypothesis doesn't support the observed facts."

Megan smiled wryly. "This isn't an exact science, Charlie. Sometimes you have to play hunches."

"But that's not what you're doing when you're profiling," Charlie pointed out. His own work, the next clue, sat chicken-scratched onto a half-sheet of paper, waiting to be worked on. "When you profile, you're applying statistical probabilities to determine the most likely characteristics of the suspect. For example, you've already figured out that this guy is white, in his mid-thirties, angry—"

"That's not hard to guess," Don put in. "The anger part, I mean."

Charlie threw him a look of mild exasperation. "—but what you're really doing is reducing uncertainty through the use of statistical research. I've been following your profiling, and each time you posit a characteristic, even though you're improving your search parameters by narrowing the field of suspects, you also reduce your chances of success by a certain quantifiable amount."

Megan frowned. "What do you mean?"

Charlie warmed to his subject. "Let's look at your assumptions: you say there is a ninety-eight percent chance of him being male. Okay, throw away that two percent. Next you say that there's a seventy-three percent chance of him being between the ages of twenty and forty."

"And you're saying that's not correct?"

"No. What I am saying is that you've increased your _risk_ of being incorrect over all. Seventy three percent of ninety eight is only seventy one point five. You now have a twenty eight point five percent chance of being incorrect. Still good odds, but not one hundred percent perfect.

"And let's take it a step further. Suppose, for argument's sake, that statistically there's a sixty percent chance of this guy being blond. Sixty percent of 71.5 is only 42.9. You have now reduced your probability of being correct to less than half, even though the odds say that you're right and that you've improved your chances of apprehending the suspect through focused dedication of resources." Charlie leaned back in his chair, confident that he'd made his point.

He hadn't.

"So you're saying my profile isn't correct." Megan's face admitted to being thoroughly confused.

"No. You said that."

"I did?"

Charlie nodded. "You said, 'this one isn't behaving the way the profiles say he should.' That means that you have an error in your profile. One of the assumptions you made, based on probabilities, is incorrect. This guy is an outlier. He doesn't fit the pattern. He doesn't fit the probabilities. The equation is only as accurate as the _assumptions_ you make."

Light dawned. "So you're saying I have to question each of my assumptions, decide which one doesn't go _with_ the odds."

Charlie grinned. He so loved working with Megan. Even though she worked in a 'soft' science, she always seemed to understand—eventually.

"Right." Don leaned back in his chair. "So what do we say to him next time he calls to taunt us? How does that help us deal with this guy?"

Charlie looked blank. "It doesn't."

"Right," Don repeated. He pushed Charlie's notes toward him, a shot hop into Charlie's grasp. "Why don't you get to work on your part of this mess, and let Megan do her job? She happens to be damn good at it."

"Oh." So help him, Charlie flushed. "Megan, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply—"

"It's all right, Charlie," Megan replied, shooting Don an unreadable look. "You're right. That's what profiling is all about. I think I need to look at some of the assumptions I've been making. Anything that will help us catch this guy."

* * *

Don waited until Charlie was out of the room before re-convening the meeting. "All right, let's recap. Three crimes: a jewelry store heist, a bank robbery, and a convenience store knock off. What do they all have in common? Let's start there."

"There's the obvious," David said. "All committed by three men, dressed in black ski masks. That kind of stands out in this climate."

"And all preceded by a phone call with a cryptic code to be solved," Colby agreed, "which we solve just in the nick of time to hear the complaints by the victims. 'If you'd only gotten here five minutes ago, you'd have caught them. Can't you move any faster?'" he sing-songed in a whiny tone, mimicking an unhappy public. "Just _once_ I'd like to solve these puzzles in time to catch these goons."

"You and me both," David agreed.

"Which doesn't make sense," Don argued. "Each time, the phone call is made with a computer generated voice. The perpetrator goes to the trouble of creating a code to be cracked to tell us where and what. That says that there's a lot of planning going on. Yet the crimes themselves are fairly simple. Why not use the same care and planning for these crimes? Megan?"

"That's one of the pieces that's puzzling me," the profiler had to admit. "The phone calls, the anger, the jibes, all point to a man who feels hurt by the system. He's out for revenge, out to show the world that he can beat us. That he's smarter than we are."

"Which he's doing," Colby pointed out unhelpfully, collecting some exasperated glares. "Well, he is. These guys have taken off minutes before we arrive, every time. We're looking like idiots out there. And the media is starting to notice."

"Which means we have to goose Charlie to solve these riddles a little faster," Don said. "He keeps saying that they aren't hard, just time-consuming." Don glanced over his shoulder at the door, as if he could see his brother through the walls into the space that Don had given him to work in. "Where do we go from here?"

"Where ever the clues point us," David said, but Don shook his head.

"No. That's futile. We've been taking that route, and coming up short. We need to be pro-active. We need to track this guy down before the next crime. We don't wait for him to hand us another set of Mickey Mouse directions. How do we get ahead of him?"

"We can review the identifying data at the crime scenes." David was grasping at straws, but none of the others could come up with a better plan. "Three men, all in black ski masks. Eye witness accounts are erratic: these guys range anywhere from dwarves to seven foot giants. Everyone's eyes are brown, except when they're blue. Or green. Or even purple, in one case. They all wear latex gloves, and don't leave prints. But wait—one set of gloves was identified as nitrile, not latex. Maybe one of them has a latex allergy." He snorted. "Like that's going to help us."

"But they take the most expensive things there," Megan argued. "These crimes are not off the cuff. They are planned, no matter how random they seem. Look at the jewelry store job: the three men went straight for the most expensive items."

"Which have not yet turned up in any fence's hands that we know about," Don reminded her. "That suggests they're stashing them until they cool off. More planning."

"And the bank robbery occurred while large transfers were taking place," Colby noted. "That tells me that they knew the bank schedules in advance."

"Even the convenience store was planned for when the register was most likely to have the largest sum of money in it," David muttered. "Not one of their more profitable jobs, but it did pay off. The owners think they got away with a few thousand dollars."

"All in all, not giving us any hints on who to tap on the shoulder," Don grumbled. "Okay, let's attack this another way. Any criminals with this M.O.? Like, anyone who just got released? Megan?"

"No one who fits the profile," she said, and then grimaced. "Let me re-phrase that: no one who fits the _current_ profile. I'd like to do a little more working on it before giving up my career."

Don frowned. "Don't let Charlie get to you, Megan. He means well—"

"And he's right, Don. Don't forget that part," Megan told him. "A big piece of profiling is using statistics to come up with the most likely suspects. But 'most likely' doesn't necessarily mean 'guilty'. And, for all Charlie's work with numbers, you can't simply eliminate gut instinct. There are times when going with the odds is not the right thing to do."

Don nodded. "So what does your gut say we should do when this guy calls again?"

Megan shrugged. "Play along, for now. He's decided he doesn't like me. I'm not 'smart enough' for him. You try. Convince him that you're the boss."

"I am the boss."

"Then it won't take much convincing, will it?"

Don kept pondering. "Nope. Let's not. Not yet, anyway. Let's annoy this guy a bit more, shall we? Nothing like a little bit of anger to cause someone to make some mistakes."

"That's what the statistics say," Megan agreed. "How?"

Don smiled. It was not a happy look. "_You_ keep talking to him, Megan. Challenge his superiority. Put it on thick. Annoy him. Annoy him as much as he's annoying us."

* * *

Step one: get the code into a workable form, meaning re-write it onto the white board that Don had had tacked onto the wall for him.

No, actually, step one was to put on the headphones that siphoned in music and filtered out the world so that he could work without extraneous noise distracting him. Charlie grabbed the blue marker—the black one had long ago run out of juice—and carefully copied the code onto the white expanse. He stepped back and stared, daring it to pop into clarity faster than usual.

V HVWW QVZTXI WCGADVCF DAGHVWWVBAG

UGPE DNA IAD FNPIIA PT

EXVT FDGAAD

KPC YXT UVTZ NVE XZ

PTA NCTZGAZ DHATDK UPCG RXGDPT XMATCA

Charlie snorted. This wasn't going to take more than twenty minutes, and most of that would by taken up by a bit of trial and error. It was a simple replacement algorithm; one simply had to substitute one letter for another to come up with the correct solution. Here again numbers counted: there were more A's than anything else, and statistically there were more E's used in English than any other letter. Therefore…Charlie started jotting E's underneath the offending A's. And the first letter, V; that had to be either A or I. He tried it as an A, didn't like it, went back and changed all the V's to I's.

Tedious. Megan had said that this guy was smart, but Charlie wasn't so certain. Compared to the work he'd done for the NSA, this was an awfully simple code. As if the man didn't really know much about writing code. Or if he were taunting them.

Well, duh. That also fit with what Megan's profile had said: the guy really _was_ taunting them. Trying to make the FBI look bad.

Not on Charlie's watch. Colby had said they needed faster? Charlie would give them faster. He glanced at his watch. Seventeen minutes. Good.

* * *

"You're sure? A kidnapping?" Don stared at the message that Charlie had written onto the whiteboard. It was legible, but just barely.

"Yeah," Charlie affirmed. "Simple replacement algorithm." He waved his hand at the deciphered message. "It's all yours."

V HVWW QVZTXI WCGADVCF DAGHVWWVBAG

_I WILL KIDNAP LUCRETIUS TERWILLIGER_

UGPE DNA IAD FNPIIA PT

_FROM THE PET SHOPPE ON_

EXVT FDGAAD

_MAIN STREET_

KPC YXT UVTZ NVE XZ

_YOU CAN FIND HIM AT_

PTA NCTZGAZ DHATDK UPCG RXGDPT XMATCA

_ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FOUR BARTON AVENUE_

"Roll," Don ordered. "David, notify LAPD for back up. Maybe we can catch this guy. Move!"

* * *

The pet shop owner stared. "You guys got here fast. I just barely called 911."

"They're gone already?" Don scanned the store. It was noisy, with dogs and cats vying with parrots and similar screeching things all yelling at the top of their lungs, or so it seemed. One large bird in particular, an avian with scarlet feathers and a beak that looked like a broomstick would serve as a breakfast treat, let out a raucous squawk that Don was certain would leave him deaf for the next two years. "Who's Lucretius Terwilliger? Did they get him?"

More staring from the owner. "I take back everything I ever said about the Feds being stupid," he announced loudly. "How'd you know the damn bird's name is Lucretius?"

"Bird?" Don now felt as stupid as the shop owner had thought him to be. "What bird?"

"They stole the other macaw, the one with blue feathers. Worth a couple grand, and a good talker. You gonna catch these guys, right? They got my bird, they got my money!"

"Right," Don echoed, the feeling of _not again_ digging a cavern deep inside him somewhere. In a lesser man, it would be an ulcer, he reflected.

And, right on schedule, his cell phone jangled. He automatically put it to his ear.

"Boss?"

"Go ahead, David." Knowing what was coming.

"Boss, got a bird here at the Barton Avenue location. A big one with a beak like a pair of hedge shears. And nothing else. No furniture, no clothes, no nothing. Just an empty apartment, except this bird. The landlady says that it's been rented out starting next week."

Don ground his teeth. Out-manuevered again! And this one barely qualified as a crime; the suspects had given the bird back before they'd even taken it. The only purpose for this little shenanigan was humiliation for the FBI. _At least someone was getting some amusement from these antics._ "Have the Crime Lab see what they can find," he finally told Sinclair, knowing that there would be next to nothing. "Maybe they can find something before the renters are due to move in."

These guys were laughing at them, laughing at the FBI, making Don himself dance to their tune. Don hated it. There wouldn't be anything at either the pet shop or the apartment: no fingerprints, no footprints. Even the eye witnesses would only describe three men dressed in black. No names mentioned, no identifying tattoos, not even a lisp. Frustrating didn't begin to cover it.

Nothing to do but to wait for the next call.


	2. Failure 2

Almost everyone around the table was edgy, nervous, waiting for the call to come in. It seemed to be the only routine that the criminals had established, this taunting phone call that occurred every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Most considerate, Colby had termed it sarcastically, giving them the weekend off to reflect on inadequate crime-solving options. Ruined the weekend most thoroughly, thinking about the _should'a, would'a, could'a._

_Almost_ everyone was edgy. Everyone, that is, except for a certain mathematician who was jotting down notes on several pieces of paper, squeezing in minutiae between the lines. Charlie appeared completely relaxed, intent on what he was writing. The pencil went from the chewing position to a scribbling process and back to chewing.

"What are you doing?" Don tried to keep the nerves out of his voice. He almost succeeded.

Charlie kept writing. Hyper-focused.

"Charlie!"

Charlie jumped. Came out of his fugue. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

"This?" Charlie didn't appear to realize that he was supposed to be agonizing with the rest of them, waiting for the next call to come in that would send them scurrying like chickens in a coop with a fox that had just jumped in. "Lecture notes. I promised Marty Detmer that I'd cover tomorrow's lecture for him, and Thursday's; got a conference that he's presenting at. He says that this bunch is a bit more Gen X than usual, needs to be spoon fed. I'm putting in stuff to make sure I go slower than usual."

"At a time like this?" Don started to ask, and then withdrew the question. Megan's eyes beamed approval, and Don almost glared back at her but held back. It wasn't Charlie's fault that he didn't have the same level of anxiety as the rest of them. He was only the consultant. He wouldn't take the heat for another failure. And, for the professor of mathematics, preparing a lecture would be a good use of spare minutes until the big event of the computerized taunting phone call. Don envied Charlie his ability to compartmentalize, and use the time to his advantage. And then envied Megan her ability to accept people for what they were. _Charlie should have had a sister like her, one that understood him. Like Mom. Not an older brother who felt left out of the family because he wasn't 'gifted'._

Colby, however, smoldered. But he stayed quiet. Don almost called him on it, almost; recognized that Colby was as on edge as he himself. And that Don himself would only be harassing the junior man only to relieve his own over-worked nerves. Better to just get this phone call over with. Maybe this would be the time that they caught this gang with a superiority complex. Maybe this time they'd get those few extra moments that would spell success instead of _too little, too late_.

The phone rang. Despite expecting it, everyone—except Charlie—jumped. David switched on the recorder and the tracing equipment, held up his finger for them to wait until it was going, then pointed. _Go_.

Megan picked up the phone. "Reeves."

"I will not speak to you." The computer-generated voice wasted no time on pleasantries. "Get the man in charge."

Don shook his head. _Keep going_. _Push him_.

"You'll talk to me, or you won't talk to anyone," Megan said calmly. Infuriatingly. "Who are you? What is it this time?"

Colby started ticking off the seconds. A few more, and the locators would kick in, if only Megan could keep the connection going long enough.

"Get the man in charge."

Again Don shook his head. Did the computer voice sound rattled?

"You'll talk to me. Your little riddles are really too childish," Megan sneered, keeping her eyes on Don for guidance. He nodded: _you're doing fine_. "It only took seventeen minutes to crack the last one. If you're going to do this, at least put some effort into it."

Click.

Shock. The team stared at the phone. The suspect had hung up on them.

David scrambled over the recorder. Colby, on another line, frowned. "Damn. Not enough. Not long enough to get a fix." He looked up at the others. "What do we do now? We don't even have any of his stupid clues to go on."

Don too was not happy over the outcome, but wasting time over what didn't happen wasn't what he was good at. "We do what we always do: we follow up after it happens. Most criminals aren't considerate enough to give us this kind of information on their activities in the first place. We'll go at this as if we never got any of these calls."

David nodded, determined not to let the situation get him down. "We find clues. We talk to suspects. Then we make arrests."

"We can do this," Megan agreed.

_Or we can continue to let him make fools of us_, went unsaid.

* * *

The clue came over the fax machine, instead. One of the clerical types, seeing Don's name on it and knowing that the agent was working the case, brought it upstairs to where Don sat glumly reviewing the lack of facts to work with. He'd been looking at the same information of nothing for the last half hour, and it looked just as incomprehensible as it did when he started. The girl knocked timidly on the door, and Don leaned back to wave her in.

"Mr. Eppes, this came through the fax—"

Don snatched it from the girl's hand, recognizing the significance immediately. "When did this come in?"

"Just now," she stammered. "It just finished coming out of the fax—"

"David!" he yelled. "Trace this fax number!" What a time for Charlie to be sent back to his own job! There it was, another set of letters with numbers this time, looking for all the world like a three year old had upset a toy chest full of blocks onto the paper.

The team moved like clockwork. David traced the number that the fax came in on: dead end. It was an office supply store that faxed pages through every day, a buck a page. Over-priced, but the mastermind behind this stupid farce wasn't being picky. Colby monitored the LAPD calls, waiting for something, anything, to come in: something including three men in black ski masks. If history was anything to go by, the crime would be going down right now while the FBI scrambled to decipher the latest code.

Don himself punched in the fast dial on his cell: Charlie. And got the voice mail. And got the voice mail again. "C'mon, c'mon," he muttered. "Pick up. Pick up." And tried the front desk of the math department at CalSci, only to get another answering machine inviting him to select from the various professors by either pressing the correct extension or '8' for dial by name. He hung up, tried again, and finally got a gum-chewing human voice.

"Would you like to leave a message? I can put you into Dr. Eppes' voice mail."

"No, I do not want to go into voice mail," Don yelled before she could too hastily switch him there. "I want you to go find him! This is an emergency!"

"Dr. Merion, head of the Math Department, has issued a statement that disagreements over grades are not to be considered emergencies no matter how close to finals' week. I can put you into Dr. Eppes' voice mail—"

"I am not a student! I have to speak to him now! This is a federal emergency—"

"One moment, please."

"Don't put me on hold—!"

Click. Don found himself talking to dead air. "So help me, if I get one more voice mail I will go over and arrest someone for obstruction of justice—"

"Dr. Eppes speaking."

_Not voice mail!_ "Charlie! Where were you?" Forgetting that he'd sent his brother back to CalSci. And forgetting that that was where he'd called. "Never mind. Another code came in. How soon can you get back here?"

"The busses—"

"Never mind; I'll send someone for you. Damn, another half hour—"

"Don, why don't you fax it to me?" Charlie said reasonably. "I'm standing right here in the main office of the department, and I think this is one of the machine's good days. It might even get through in a moment or two."

Don growled. Didn't Charlie understand how serious this was? "Give me the damn number." Moments later the page that he'd received was on its way.

And moments later the answer came back, a new record: fourteen minutes, thirty two seconds. "It's the aquarium downtown, Don. Real simple code, this time, almost as if he wanted me to solve it quickly—"

"Thanks, Charlie. I'll be in touch. Bye."

* * *

"In, out, gone." The aquarium manager was upset, and rightfully so. What wasn't right was her desire to take it out on the people who had come to help. "Where were you people? I pushed the silent alarm."

"That alarm goes to LAPD, not the FBI," Don responded. "They came as quickly as they could. We arrived on their tails, without receiving any alarm," and neglecting to mention the coded message sent by the suspects. "You say those men were here less than five minutes?"

"They knew exactly what to take, and where to look for it," the manager said, holding back her tears. "I don't know how I'm going to explain this to the board. We needed that money to pay for the new exhibit."

"You say they knew what they were doing?" Don pressed, wishing that Megan was there. She handleddistraught women so much better than he did, but she was already occupied with a bevy of them. The ticket takers were all women except for one whose gender Don was having a little difficulty identifying, and, bottom line, Don would rather that Megan stay right where she was, taking statements from the half dozen crying people who had been up close and personal with the black-masked robbers. Yes, let Megan handle that little chore. _Give me a _shots fired _any day._

"Yes. They came in through that door," and she pointed to the employee entrance, "waved guns around, and pulled all the money out of the cash registers and then forced me to open the safe. It was a lot of money; we hadn't had a chance to deposit thereceipts from the week end."

"Do you think that they knew that?" Don pressed gently.

It was a new thought. The manager's eyes were first puzzled, then grew hard. "You know, I think they did. I don't know how they learned about it, but I'm almost certain that they must have. They knew where everything was. There was no hesitation, no looking around. And they didn't seem to care that I'd pushed the silent alarm."

"I suspect they didn't," Don said wryly. "They knew they'd be gone before anyone could get here." Timing, that was it. This bunch were experts with fast timing. Wonder if Charlie could somehow factor that into one of those equations of his? Nah. This one was going to require some good, old-fashioned hard detective work. Charlie was good at deciphering those ridiculous clues that the mastermind kept sending but those, Don was coming to the conclusion, were designed to keep him and his team off balance. They were time-wasters, things to make Don jump _this_ way when he ought to be jumping _that_. Sitting around a table, talking to someone who was getting their jollies from making him and his team look like bumbling idiots.

That needed to stop.

"I'll have the Crime Lab people look things over," Don promised the manager, going through the motions, doubting that anything would turn up. These criminals had been very clever, and there was no reason to think that they'd stop thinking over a tank full of exotic fish. The only wonder about it was that no one, so far, had gotten killed during any of the crimes. Don hoped that these criminals had something approximating a conscience. It was a possibility. Guns had been waved, even shots fired on one occasion, but no one killed.

Megan came up to him, an intersecting path with David and Colby. "I'm getting the same gibberish from these witnesses that we've gotten from every other crime scene," she admitted. "Don, I'm frustrated. Don't these people ever make a mistake?"

"They will." Don really hoped that they would. "They have to. Nobody's perfect."

"These guys are trying for the record," Colby groused. "We literally have no leads to go on, nothing to follow up."

David shook his head. "There has to be something. Something that we've overlooked. Someone we can talk to." He shrugged. "I'll hit my street sources again, see if anyone's heard anything. Maybe there's a new guy in town that they can put me onto."

"Do it," Don ordered, as frustrated as the rest. "You gonna talk to Fast Manny? Or you want me to?"

David considered. "You do it, boss. You scared the crap out him last time. Maybe he'll roll better for you."

"You got it." Don sighed, and looked around at the crime scene. He'd done that a lot today, he realized: sighing. There just wasn't a lot to be seen. "Let's pack in it, folks. Megan, I'll get the car. David, take Colby along with you when you squeeze your sources and I'll see you back at the office when you're through. I'll hit your leftovers after that. Hank," he called to the head of the Crime Lab, "give me a report as soon as you have it, right?"

"You got it."

"Give me two seconds, Don," Megan requested, looking at the notes she'd scribbled. "I'll meet you out front."

That was a clear advantage to this job, Don reflected, sliding the key into the ignition of the black Suburban: parking. The parking lot to the aquarium covered at least an acre, which meant a potential ten minutes of walking just to get to the ticket office out front for any sight-seer not taking public transportation. Don, however, did not fit into that category and therefore was able to park the big vehicle just about anywhere he damn well pleased with an officious FBI sign in the front window to ward off any tickets. And, in this case, that meant that he was able to park only a few hundred yards from the entrance, which gave him the perfect vantage point to see everything that happened with a clear and unobstructed view. What it _didn't_ give him was the opportunity to stop it.

Megan emerged from the main entrance, glancing back over her shoulder to say something to someone inside. Probably a 'thanks very much, if you think of anything call me' sort of comment. Then she turned back to the outside view, scanned the area to look for the Suburban and Don himself, and walked toward him. All that Don would remember later in excruciating detail. He would also remember the roar of an engine behind him, one that he ignored at the moment as someone having trouble getting their car started, would remember seeing a silver sedan leap forward and jump the curb, would remember that silver sedan aiming directly for Megan Reeves walking across the front plaza. He would remember the profiler leaping out of the way, watching her get clipped by the edge of the sedan, feeling the plunge in his gut as she slammed into the brick side of the aquarium and flopped gracelessly to the concrete walk.

"Megan!" he screamed. License plate, he thought, wrenching open the Suburban's door, dashing out. But the silver sedan was already streaking off into the distance, and Megan was lying on the ground. And there was too much blood.


	3. Failure 3

"She was lucky." Don turned away from the glass window into the Intensive Care Unit. "Doc says the worst of it was a concussion, wants to keep her overnight at least, maybe a few days." It didn't completely square with the splint on one wrist or the bulky white bandage across one side of Megan's face, but Don had learned long ago that appearances were deceiving. Look at what had just happened: Megan walking out of a completed crime scene, none of them expecting anything like this. The criminals they were after had just upped the ante. They were out for blood.

Don would be more than happy to give it to them.

His team felt the same way. "It's time for some serious leaning," David said, the anger smoldering deep.

"Keep it clean," Don felt obliged to say, though part of him ached for the chance to rip the answers out of the nearest person available. "We can't afford to let these guys walk on a technicality." He stared inside. The woman inside looked so still and the machines so cold. A nurse moved quietly from one side of the room to the other, adjusting this and that. It looked as incomprehensible as the suspects that had done this.

"This is crap," Colby announced. "How the _hell_ do they do it? How do they know what we're doing? They finish every job literally _minutes_ before we arrive, and they're sure as hell laughing when we roll up. How do they _know_?"

"That's it," Don said slowly. It hit him with the force of a small tsunami. "They know."

"Don?" David raised his eyebrows.

"They know," Don repeated. "How do they know? They time every operation so that they complete it just minutes before we arrive. That takes a lot of planning: an estimate of the time it takes for us to arrive at the scene. An estimate of how long it will take us to crack their stupid little codes. And, gentlemen, if they're leaving less than _five minutes_ before we arrive, then they're not guessing. They _know_!"

"We have someone who's dirty?" Colby leaped to the obvious conclusion.

"Maybe." Don looked at each of them: David, with the anger smoking behind dark eyes and Colby, who wore hisfury like a badge upon his sleeve. "But it's only us three right here. You think one of us is dirty?"

"Or Charlie?" Colby blurted out, but immediately shook his head. "Not him. Who, then? Someone back at the office? A secretary, or someone? Somebody with access to a phone?"

"Always a chance, but there are easier ways," Don said. "Example: what if they stationed a plant outside FBI headquarters with a cell phone? We come running out of the building, leap into our cars, and speed away. A cell phone call later, and the criminals are in and out of the job. We show up just in time to hear the grateful citizenry complain that we're too late. That sound plausible?"

David nodded. "Works for me. And I like it a lot better than someone I know working against us. Next question: if that's how they do it, how do we get it to work for us? We've still got to catch these guys."

"Tapes," Colby said. "Our building has security cameras monitoring the plaza outside the entrance. We can get hold of the tapes covering a half hour before and after the phone calls, see if there's any person who shows up in all of them."

* * *

"Cutting it close, Colby," Don warned as the younger agent slid into his chair. David was already there, sitting around the table and Charlie was there too, furiously scribbling notes into a notebook. Don had already glanced over the incomprehensible symbols: it was Charlie's next lecture for the out of town professor's spoon-fed class. The previous lecture had gone well, Charlie assured him. The time before the previous call had been well-spent, even if it didn't do anything to solve this case. _At least one thing turned out right. With luck, Megan might get to come home from the hospital tomorrow. I need to think about continuing the protection on her. That sedan aimed for her. Why?_ "Our next phone call could be any minute. Any luck?"

"Not sure," Colby replied with a hopeful _I extended the parameters_ tone to his voice. "I didn't get any repeat suspects for all of the time periods in question, so I expanded the search to people using cell phones in the vicinity who could have called it in to the criminals. You know, in case they hired different people who would do it as a lark, not knowing the real story. Make it more difficult to identify the lookout."

"Good," Don grunted, knowing the younger agent was looking for his approval. "Anything?"

"I'm not sure. There were sixteen people that I found using their cells at the time that we exited the building last Friday. All of 'em could be innocent, but maybe…"

"That's your angle." Don handed that part of the investigation over to Colby as a reward. "Identify the people, and talk to them. Gently; don't lean. Get their permission to pull their cell records, see if anything looks promising. Anybody refuses, come back to me and we'll talk about a warrant." It was a long shot, but it was pro-active and that was what they needed right now. Not another phone call, taunting them about another crime being committed as they sat here deciphering codes. "David, you ready?"

"Been ready for the last fifteen minutes. This guy gonna call, or what?" More nerves on edge. Tinkering with the equipment on the table, not that it needed fussing with but David too needed something to do with his hands.

"We've got a consistent day, but not a time."

"It's all part of the variables," Charlie spoke up. "He hasn't called at the same hour twice, but it's always been on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. And it's always been daytime hours. Actually, they've all been after noon. After one o'clock."

"Considerate," Don grunted. "He waits until after lunch."

"Or perhaps there's a reason why," David mused. "He's got a wife and kids, maybe? A family who doesn't know what Daddy does for a living?"

"It would fit Megan's profile," Don agreed, when the phone rang. Don almost snatched it up, but held his hand above the handset, waiting for David to give him the go-ahead.

"Go."

Don forced himself to relax, to become calm. It might be a routine call, a false alarm. Or it could be their suspect calling to gloat and taunt. He picked up the phone, putting it on speaker. "Eppes."

"Are you the one solving the riddles?" Computer voice. It was the call.

_Get this guy off-guard. _"I'm the only one you'll get to talk to. Say what you have to say. Turn yourself in. We'll get you eventually."

"No. I'll speak to the one who solves the riddles."

"I solve them," Don lied with a poker face, hoping that the bluff would leach from his face into his voice, putting a restraining hand on Charlie's wrist. _How did this guy know?_ The mathematician kept silent, his eyes round, watching his older brother work. Biting his lip. This was Don's world, and it was never so evident as now. Put him in front of a class room and Professor Charles Eppes was at home. Here, dealing with someone who could only be described as a criminal mastermind, talking to them on the phone: that was where Don excelled. He was in his element. Don was in control.

"Really." The computer generated voiced generated scorn. "Prove it. Cube root of 79,507, now."

Colby frowned, alarm showing, but Charlie looked up at the ceiling, then jotted something down on a scrap of paper and handed it to Don.

"Forty three," Don told the computer voice.

A moment to reflect, then: "The clue." _Yes!_ Don allowed a small smile of triumph to reign. They were fooling the man on the other end of the phone line. "Listen carefully: it will be faxed to your office within five minutes." Click.

Don leaned back in his chair, willing his hand not to shake. "Alert the secretarial staff."

"On it." Colby was out of his chair, eager for movement.

"David?"

"As usual, not long enough." David tapped a few more buttons disconsolately on his equipment. "This guy knows what he's doing. This is the faster locator box in town, and it's still not fast enough for a trace. And it wouldn't surprise me if this cat is sending the signal through a couple of different relay stations, just to confuse the issue."

"More 'profiling', David? Isn't that Megan's job?"

Snort. "Common sense. This guy wants to make fools of us, show us how smart he is. I'd say he's succeeding."

"But he's not," Charlie put in.

Don lifted his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Charlie shook his head. "Don, he knows a lot about tech equipment, and he's clever, but he's not very smart. Don, the codes he's sending are downright elementary. When I did stuff for the NSA, I didn't even bother to teach this sort of code deciphering because it was too easy. Anyone using a code like this would have been laughed out of the business."

"After they got shot and killed," David murmured under his breath.

Charlie tossed him a glance that reluctantly admitted the accuracy of Sinclair's statement. "But he _does_ do his homework. I'll bet that he's already planned out his next three crimes, has gathered information on each of them or is the process of doing so. He thinks ahead. He's like a chess player, planning out the sequence of events several steps in advance."

Don saw what his younger brother was getting at. "And if he's thinking out a plan ahead of time, we can deduce that plan ahead of time. We can predict his next move."

"Right. All I need are enough variables to reduce the uncertainty. I already have a date: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And I'm working on some multi-variate analysis to try to narrow down the location for you. My computer back at my office has some stat packages that would make it easier…" Charlie let his voice trail off hopefully.

Don nodded. "Let's get this current code to bed, and I'll have someone take you back. You think you can have some predictions for us before Friday?"

Charlie shrugged, unwilling to commit himself. "I can try. I may not have enough data points to reduce the uncertainty to a realistic sample."

Colby burst back into Don's office, paper in hand. "Got it!" And: "it's a whopper. This thing looks crazy. You sure you're going to be able to solve it, Charlie?"

"Let me see it." Don intercepted the sheet of paper, scanning the letters. Not a one made sense. He thrust it at Charlie. "Do your thing, buddy."

Charlie accepted the paper, his chin set. He perused it, rubbing his chin absently. He shrugged, shaking his head dolefully. "What did I tell you? Simple."

.MT NWQTEWX ZM WNWLS RZC EEWM ZM EEBF EETS T

.CBXZM OFZEF'Z NRZK MB NWQTEWX ZM CXBWN

VNBEEZX IZTEETA IWM WQBL

.EETMV NWQWI VT MBLM HAZH B XWFBEY WQBL T

* * *

Don glanced at his watch for the fiftieth time, and then glared at the door that separated him from his brother. Charlie wanted it that way, claimed that Don and the others distracted him while he was working. The music in the headphones didn't, the noise from the street below didn't, but three men sitting quietly staring at his back would.

Twenty minutes. The previous time had been fourteen and change. 'Simple' Charlie had called it. _Not so simple, was it, buddy? Not this time. Hurry it up. Somewhere, someone was getting robbed_.

Colby had tapped the computer in the corner of the room to slave it to the outside security cameras. "Scanning," he muttered, looking for anyone using a cell phone. "Bumper crop of 'em. Tell me I'm seeing a guy with two, one at each ear. What is it, a cheap conference call?"

"Any look familiar? Any duplicates from any of the tapes?"

"A couple. I'm not sure; I'll need to pull up the other tapes to be certain. Maybe that guy." He pointed to a figure on the screen.

Both Don and David leaned over his shoulder. "Don't know him," Don reported.

"I do," David said. "That's Henderson, from Accounting. Makes a game of harassing me over my expense report."

"Hey, I sign that expense report. What's his problem?"

"Beats me. Maybe it's just his way of sharing the love."

"Any chance—?"

"Somewhere between slim and none," David assured him. "Besides, he's got a cubicle by himself and a view of the parking lot. It'd be easier for him to stay inside and watch us scurry out to our cars, then call. Rule him out, Don."

"Least he's got an excuse for being in the area. Is that a cigarette he's lighting up? Doesn't he know that smoking'll kill him?"

"Makes me grateful that all Federal buildings are smoke-free," David smirked. "Always knew I didn't like him."

Don looked at his watch again, then at the door. "C'mon, c'mon, buddy. You kept saying it was simple. What's the hold up?"

As if in answer, the door opened and Charlie emerged, flushed with excitement. "This one had a new twist. The suspect wrote it backward, and that threw me off for a minute or two. And, Don, this one's different. Look." He handed over his answer sheet.

I HAVE PLACED A BOMB THAT IS NEVER STILL. HAVE TEN MILLION DOLLARS READY TO DELIVER AT FOUR O'CLOCK TODAY. I WILL CALL TO TELL YOU WHERE TO DELIVER IT.

"What the hell?" Disbelief turned Don's voice harsh. "What the hell is a bomb that's never still? What kind of stupid ass riddle is that?"

"And it's already two o'clock," Colby added. "There's no way we could get ten million by four PM. This guy is crazy. What do we do with this?"

Don closed his eyes, praying for divine inspiration. "Notify LAPD. Get the bomb squad ready to go on a moment's notice. And think, dammit! What's never still? Where is the damn bomb?"

"A river," Charlie said thoughtfully. "The ocean. Bodies of water. They're never still."

"There are miles of coastline to search," David said, horrified. "We'll never get to it in time. We can't search every bag on every beach from Santa Monica to Laguna!"

"He's counting on it," Colby ground out. "He knows that we haven't a chance."

"Start the bomb squad to the beaches," Don ordered. "Any hunches which one…?" he trailed off, thinking. "You're right; he knows we wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell."

"Don?"

"Not the beach. Not the ocean. That's too easy for this guy, too straight-forward. He's trying to make fools of us. He's put the bomb where we can find it, if only we're clever enough. He's always given us a 'chance'," Don explained. "We've been too slow to get to the scene, every time, but there's been a chance. If he put the bomb at the shore, we don't have that chance. It's not there. He would have given us a better clue."

"If it's not the shore, then where? What else is never still besides the ocean?"

"Busses." Don grinned without humor. "The busses keep on going through the city. They don't stop until they go back to base for the night, when the city slows down. The same hours that this guy keeps, so do the busses." He leaned forward. "Have the bomb squad report to the central bus terminal, and have every single bus in this city pass through there for inspection. We have a bomb to find, gentlemen!"


	4. Failure 4

"Let them do their job. Let them do their job," Don chanted under his breath. He watched, eyes hooded, as the Bomb Squad went about their business. Every bus had been hastily emptied and re-routed into home base, where robots and bomb-sniffing dogs had sprung into action. No luck so far, but Don knew that he was right. Somewhere, on one of these busses, sat a package with more kick to it that any passenger had a right to expect. So there he sat at a card table hastily pressed into service as a command desk, doing the heavy supervising of the Bomb Squad from a distance. No matter that the 'supervising' consisted of a politely worded 'please keep out of our way, sir'. He, like every other non Bomb Squad member, wore their heavy flak jackets, just in case, and watched as the men in suits reminiscent of the 'Pillsbury Doughboy Goes To Outer Space' carefully checked out every bark of each and every dog. There were more than a few canines going home to a filet mignon for dinner tonight, he knew.

The call from the computer voice would be forwarded to his cell phone, so that he could be present at this operation. And there was a satchel at his side, courtesy of what he privately liked to call the 'props department.' Ten million? He snorted quietly to himself. The mastermind had fallen down on that issue. There was no way that even the FBI could come up with that amount on two hours notice. Another oddity that didn't fit the profile of the mastermind who planned: he didn't realize that. Some things were brilliantly executed, others fell down in the mud. Odd.

But that didn't mean that Don wouldn't play along. He was getting damn tired of having his chain yanked, and if toting a fake suitcase full of chopped up newspapers would help catch this gang, then he was all for it. Though he'd really rather go to the meet with the knowledge that they'd found the damn bomb.

"How many is that?" he asked, trying for casual.

But David recognized it for what it was: an excuse to seem useful. He felt it himself, watching the Bomb Squad people like a hawk, looking for that sudden sharp jerk of the shoulders that indicated that someone had found something. "I lost count after sixty-seven busses cleared. How many left?"

"Somewhere between five and ten per cent," Don replied. "The manager wasn't sure how many were in the shop for repairs." He sat up straight. "And those won't matter."

"Don?"

"They're not moving! They're still!" Don jumped up, grabbed the Bomb Squad captain. "Don't worry about the busses down for repairs. The bomb won't be there."

"What do you mean?"

"The suspect told us to look for it where it's 'never still.' Non-operational busses are still."

The captain nodded grimly. "Makes sense. I wish you'd had your revelation an hour ago. That's when we checked 'em, waiting for the in-service ones to come in."

"Oh." Don felt less elated. "Sorry."

"Don't be. Keep thinking. Maybe we can end this without loss of life."

Don returned to his make-shift desk, sitting down beside David. Colby joined them, pulling up a folding chair and then declining to sit. He propped a foot onto the seat and leaned and watched. "Six more minutes. If this guy is on time."

"Can't see him being any other way. You drop Charlie off?"

"Yeah. Safe and sound, at CalSci. Tried to show me the stuff he was working on to predict where this guy would strike next. Seemed to think that the variables were getting closer." Colby sighed. "I was good at Calculus, even thought about majoring in math at college, but I gotta tell you, Don, your brother leaves me in the dust."

"Don't let it bother you. He leaves all of us in the dust."

"But does it make him any happier than the rest of us?" David asked, knowing the answer. "He's just a guy, like each of us. He puts his pants on one leg at a time."

"You sure?" Don asked dryly.

Colby stared at him. "He doesn't? How does he get dressed?"

"Yeah, he does. I just wanted to see the look on your face." Don checked his own watch. "And in three more minutes—"

His cell buzzed at him.

"Early," Don commented, flipping it open. "Eppes."

"Warehouse, Fourth and Cienega. Twenty minutes," the computer voice said. "Come alone and unarmed. Or I'll blow up the bomb." And hung up.

"Tracing," David said, his fingers dancing on the equipment in front of him. "Doesn't look good, Don. I lucked into a partial, but I'm looking at a routing station. Not even close to enough time on this call. This guy knows his stuff."

"Keep at it," Don told him. "Nobody's perfect. He's going to make a mistake sometime. You be the one to catch him. Keep on top of this operation here with the busses." He gestured to Colby, slipping a pair of shades over his eyes. "You're with me. I'll drop you off a block away. Handle the LAPD, keep them under control. I don't want this turning into a shooting match with any hotshot SWATs. Let's go."

* * *

Despite a suit, a flak jacket, and a shoulder holster tailored to fit unnoticeably under his arm, Don felt naked. Even the small electronic piece snugged into his ear, whispering details about deployment outside, didn't help. He set the small suitcase down at his feet, the better to have his hands free.

The warehouse was empty except for an overwhelming quantity of dust. There was a metal staircase overlaid with rust that led up to a supervisor's office that used to have glass but now only had a little metal fencing to close it in. Windows sat high up along two walls, both looking out over the street and into another warehouse, the view dimmed by soot on the panes. At four in the afternoon it was sunny outside, but the amount of light entering the building was substantially reduced by the windows' lack of transparency. Don pulled off his shades and stuck them in his coat pocket as a tool that interfered with sight in this dim environs. A rat skittered away as Don walked to the center of the floor. An oversized crate labeled as having been received from _Unpronounceable_, Jakarta, sat in one corner waiting to be claimed. The crate had been waiting a long time, and would wait a while longer. There were a number of Oriental letters on it, and Don ignored them. They weren't pertinent.

What was pertinent was the emptiness around him. He could see anyone coming, and they could see him. They could see that he was alone—or so they should think. This group had been waving guns around since Day One, although no shots had been fired.

Things were escalating. They'd taken out Megan; she could have very easily been killed. And this bomb signaled that killings were no longer off limits. He had to finish this, and quickly, before anyone else got hurt.

"I'm here," he called out, quelling the urge to pull out his gun. "Show yourself."

Nothing.

Don lifted his arms, the better to keep his itchy hand away from his gun. "I'm unarmed. I've brought the money."

"Keep your hands in the air." From behind him. Don froze.

"Don't move."

"I'm not."

"You'd better be alone."

"You see anyone else here besides you and me?"

Don felt rather than heard the quiet footsteps sidle up behind him, flinched when a hand reached under his jacket and slipped out his revolver.

"You were told to be unarmed."

"Where's the bomb?"

A snicker. "Another few minutes, and it'll be pretty obvious. Kick the case behind you, toward me."

The earpiece began whispering at him again. "Don. We found it. We found the bomb, and it's a big one. We're pulling it out of the bus right now."

_Good!_ Don kept his hands up in the air, where the man behind him could see, and shoved the case backward with one foot. "You want to count it?"

An evil chuckle. "Oh, we'll count it, all right. And you'll know pretty quick if the count is what we expect it to be." Don heard metallic sounds behind his back, identified them as the man in black pulling the clip out of Don's own revolver, dropping the pieces onto the floor. "You can stay right here. Don't move for ten minutes, or that bomb will go off before either of us wants it to."

"You got it." Drop almost completed. All Don needed was to get out of this spot alive, and it would be over: bomb defused, no money handed over—just a few stacks of cut newspaper—and no one killed. Including a certain Special Agent Eppes that Don happened to be fond of. And as a bonus, Colby and his band of LAPD locals might even be able to keep this dude from slipping through their fingers. "Staying right here. Not a problem."

"Damn right it won't be."

Not expecting that. Don found himself on his hands and knees on the cold concrete warehouse floor, wobbling with stars going nova in front of his eyes. A moment later the pain caught up with him: the same nova erupted inside his skull. The man in black had cold-cocked him from behind. As blackness closed in, Don hoped that it wasn't with his own weapon. That would be embarrassing.

* * *

"Don! Don! You all right?"

What he wanted to say was: _why, yes, Colby, I'm perfectly fine. I just decided to take a short nap, here on the dusty warehouse floor while I was waiting for the rest of you to come in and join my impromptu party_.

What came out was a groan. Strong hands helped him to sit up, more fireworks going off in his head. "You get 'im?" he finally managed to croak.

"Slipped by us. Call the paramedics!" Colby yelled.

"I'm fine," Don growled. He struggled to stand, feeling at a distinct disadvantage down on the floor. Colby steadied him as he staggered to his feet. "Did you get him?"

"He slipped past," Colby repeated. "You sure you're okay? You're bleeding."

"I'm fine!" Don snarled. "What about the bomb?"

"They're defusing it right now—"

"Tell them to back off. Right now!" Don's head was still spinning. _Dammit, don't fall down! Colby won't listen to you if you fall on your face!_ "Those crooks are going to take one look at what's inside that suitcase and they'll detonate the bomb on the spot! Call it in! Now, Colby!"

* * *

"I think you'd better open this, Don."

David's voice was tinged with equal parts sympathy and fear. No, make that two parts fear: fear of what his team leader with a splitting head-ache would say when he came in, and fear of what his team leader would say if David _didn't_ intrude to give him the letter. Actually, three parts fear: the letter looked ominous. There was no particular reason that it looked ominous—it was a plain white envelope, with 'Special Agent Don Eppes' scrawled across the front in a childish hand—but David Sinclair had learned long ago not to discount his gut instincts. And right now that gut was screaming that this letter had something to do with the current case.

Don only held out his hand. One hand; the other was still holding an ice pack to the back of his head. "Been irradiated for anthrax?"

"Already done." David didn't move.

Not their finest case. Megan still hospitalized, although the docs expected to send her home today. Don winced at the thought; she looked worse than he felt. All he had was a rap on the noggin. The profiler was still toting around a sling, and the black eye she sported went perfectly with all the rest of the bruises. And less than an hour ago the bomb that they had been searching for had been detonated remotely, just as Don had feared. The only saving grace was that it had been found, and, at Don's just-in-time warning, put into a detonation chamber. No one had been killed, or even injured. A bunch of unhappy bus drivers, to be sure, at the interruption in their daily routine, and obviously a pack of unhappy criminals who set off the explosion after finding that the suitcase with ten million dollars only held a couple of twenties rubber-banded around some old newspaper, but all in all a better day than anyone had a right to expect.

Except himself. Just a little head-ache, he insisted to himself, holding the ice pack closer, hoping to press away the pain. The aspirin that he took over an hour ago should kick in any time. _Right_.

He didn't really think that this bunch had access to enough lab supplies to create their own version of anthrax, but then, he hadn't really thought that this bunch would get this far. They were making him look bad. And, right now, they were making him _feel_ bad as well.

He liked David. Really liked his style. At the moment, the other agent was opening the letter addressed to Special Agent Don Eppes, making Don feel like it was David's job to do this for Don, not just because Don had gotten his head busted open and needed one hand for the ice pack.

But Don didn't like what David pulled out of the envelope. It was a single piece of white paper, folded into three's so that it would fit inside. David opened it up.

It was a picture of Megan.

It was a black and white picture of Megan lying crumpled on the ground at the aquarium, blood leaking out darkly onto the cement, Don's own Suburban in the corner of the picture. There were several people in the background, people that Don didn't remember seeing because at the time he'd been a little busy dashing forward to see if the profiler still lived. Only the 'ium' of Aquarium could be seen from the sign hanging down just low enough to be included in the picture.

And there was a caption, written in a childish scrawl:

_I guess I don't have to speak to her anymore. And neither do you._

Don found his voice. "When did this come in?"

"About fifteen minutes ago. An eight year old kid brought it to the front desk, said a 'nice lady' gave him five bucks to hand deliver the envelope to us. We've got people talking to the kid, trying to get him to draw us a picture. It's not much to go on. We're not getting much beyond white Caucasian, adult but not elderly. Oh, and brunette hair. Don't hold out much hope, Don. He's only eight. It was his luck to be hanging around where our suspect could make use of him."

"Old enough to take five bucks," Don grunted. "Where's Megan? We still got somebody with her?"

"Yeah. She's still at the hospital, getting ready to be released."

"Keep someone with her at all times," Don ordered, wishing that his head would stop pounding. He indicated the photo. "These are not stable people. They wanted her out of the way. Let's make sure that they don't try again." He paused. A thought tried to crawl into his head, found itself blocked by a barrier composed of unrelieved pain, and battered its way inside anyway. "Why did they want her out of the way?"

"Don?"

"I mean, look at it, David. We were all there. They could have picked off any one of us; you, me, Colby. Why Megan? This is a group that does their homework. They plan. They _had_ to have planned to take her out there at the Aquarium. The place I can understand: very public and very obvious. But why Megan?"

"What is she?" David mused. "She profiles. She may have had the best chance at stopping them. Going back to what you said earlier, about being pro-active. All the rest of us just respond to what comes in. They send us clues, we solve the riddle, and we jump as soon as we find out how high. All retro-active. But Megan was looking at who these guys are, what kind of people. She was looking ahead."

"And that made her dangerous to them." Don decided not to nod his head. It might fall off. "Make sure you get that protection for her, David. And let's take this to her," he added, indicating the white paper with the profiler's photo on it. "Megan also does a bit of handwriting analysis with her profiling. Let's see what she makes of this." Don considered for a moment, wondering when the damn aspirin would finally kick in. He sighed, and reached into his pocket to pull out the car keys. He tossed them over. "You drive." Maybe a short nap would do him good.


	5. Failure 5

"Won't help, Don. Sorry." Megan handed back the sheet of paper.

If anything, Don thought, Megan looked worse. It was always that way, when the bruises started to turn all colors of the rainbow and then some. Her black eye had turned purple, but now seemed like it was letting a slender sliver of light through to the eyeball underneath. She lay against the plastic pillow of the hospital bed, the white linens making her seem tiny and frail. The sling didn't help, binding one arm against the rest of her body.

"Because…?" Don let the question trail off.

Megan sighed. "Because they got a child to write it for them. Even writing with the opposite hand wouldn't produce this sort of handwriting. They were careful, Don. I'm sorry. It won't help."

"The kid?" Don looked back at David.

David looked blank. "Not that I know of. He didn't mention that they told him to write the letters. But we didn't ask him, either." Half a smile twisted his face. "And he got ten bucks from us, not just five. And ice cream."

"Sucker. Get somebody to go ask him. Maybe we'll get lucky." Don turned back to Megan. "Anything you can think of? Any leads to follow up?"

"I'm on drugs," Megan informed him. "I'm barely able to put two thoughts together, let alone think."

Don frowned; she was right. But there had to be some reason that they had targeted Megan, and the thought that she was the profiler didn't seem to ring true. "Get some rest," he finally said. "I'm keeping the security on you until we have them in custody."

"Don, I—"

"Not up for discussion," he told her. "You got everything you need? Want me to arrange for someone to help at home? Move in with my dad for a couple of days until you feel better? You know he likes you."

"Your dad likes everyone," Megan agreed. "He's one of the sweetest guys I've met. I can see how you and Charlie turned out the way you did. Thanks, but I'd rather just go home and sleep in my own soft bed where alarms aren't ringing half the night. You don't really need to have anyone stand watch—"

"Like I said, not up for discussion," Don interrupted.

Megan smiled wanly, giving in. "You'll keep me posted on the progress?"

"You got it."

* * *

Don slid into his seat at the chair, handing out copies of the paper with Megan's photo on it to the surviving members of his team seated around the table. He'd shuddered over the first one, but was finally getting inured to the sight of her lying crumpled on the concrete. It still made him angry, and he resolved for yet the hundredth time to get the bunch that had done this.

"I just heard from Tech," he announced. "They found the tracer that we put into the suitcase. Our perpetrators flushed it down a toilet somewhere east of the sewers. It didn't take the suspects long to detect it."

"They were looking for it," was David's opinion. "They probably expected us to try something. Anything on the bomb itself?"

Don shook his head, ignoring the residual head ache from yesterday. A good night's sleep had done wonders and carefully _not_ having dinner with Charlie and his dad had prevented the pair from fussing over him. "There are a few leads to run down on some of the materials used in the bomb, and the Bomb Squad is running them. They'll report back to me when they have anything solid. Captain Winters said that he doesn't think they'll get much. Whoever put the bomb together knew what they were doing, made most of it out of common household items. Said that takes some real good knowledge of how to make things go boom."

"But surely that narrows down the search parameters," Charlie put in, looking up from his note-jotting. "How many people know how to build a bomb from scratch? And have access to the right materials?"

"That's just it, Charlie," David said, "there are a lot of them out there. Most are perfectly legitimate. They learned in college chemistry, need the information for other things. I'll bet that some of your students could do it right now. That doesn't make them suspects."

Charlie had to agree. "Probably Larry Fleinhardt knows as well. I could almost certainly research it pretty easily."

"See?" Don said. "But neither you nor Larry are a suspect."

"Larry likes Megan. He wouldn't try to hurt her."

"Good reason right there," Don agreed.

"But you're getting closer."

"We're getting closer," Don acknowledged with a certain satisfaction. "This whole bomb affair was a mistake on their part. We now know that someone on their side has to have some extensive knowledge of explosives. Despite my disparaging comments, that does narrow down the playing field. Hopefully, today's phone call will narrow it down some more. We didn't play by the rules this last time. We found the bomb before they expected us to. They're not making us look so foolish, and they won't like that. They'll be out to make us seem utterly ridiculous on this next caper, and they'll be working hard to do it. They'll make mistakes. They'll give us the opportunity to take them down."

"Right." Charlie stared at the phone, expecting it to ring. It had for the last several Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

David fiddled with the tracking equipment.

Don stared at the white paper, seeing Megan fly through the air, over and over. Saw her smack up against the aquarium brick wall. Saw her fall.

Charlie watched the phone, waiting.

David waited.

Don waited.

They waited.

"What if it doesn't ring?" Charlie asked.

"It's going to ring. It always has."

"They need to make us look bad," Don agreed.

He waited.

David waited.

Charlie waited. Charlie looked around; he'd finished his notes for tomorrow's lecture, and hadn't brought anything else to pass the time. He looked around some more. "How's your head, Don?"

"Fine. How'd you know about that? You tell him, David?"

"Not me, Don."

"What, I can't be observant?"

"Charlie, you're as observant as…as…" Don cast around, trying and failing to think of a reasonable simile. "Charlie, you're oblivious to the world."

"Not all the time."

"Most of it."

"Only when I'm working on a problem."

"Which is most of the time. A bomb could go off in the room next to you, and you'd go on solving whatever." The moment he said it, Don winced. _That_ comparison hit a little too close to home. There was a bus on the road with passengers who were safe because Don and his team has successfully defused a bomb. And if one or more of the criminals were experts in demolitions, more bombs could be expected. Don didn't want more bombs. He wanted to catch these sleaze balls and put them where they couldn't make any more bombs.

He waited.

David waited.

Charlie waited.

"How's Megan?"

"She's home."

"Oh."

Don waited.

David waited.

Charlie waited.

"Dad get off on his trip okay?"

"Yeah. He drove out this morning to the airport. Should be landing in Vegas," Charlie consulted his watch, "should have landed half an hour ago."

"Staying with that friend of his?"

"Rudy Gallagher. Yeah, I've got the phone number at home in case anything comes up."

Don waited.

David waited.

Charlie waited.

"Maybe this time they won't call," David suggested.

"Bite your tongue. I can just see explaining to the deputy director why you and I and a highly paid consultant who happens to be my brother spent the afternoon doing nothing. Can you say 'very expensive nepotism'? They're just making us wait. Making us nervous."

"It's working," Charlie said. A pencil snapped in his fingers, and he started. He sheepishly put the pencil pieces down, then picked the two halves up and tossed them into the trash can with a embarrassed look.

"Colby getting anywhere with his security tapes of cell phone users?" David asked.

Don shook his head. "Not yet. He's already canvassed over thirty people, all of whom have cheerfully given him permission to research their calls for the last month or more." He sighed. "You'd think that at least one of them would have something to hide. A mistress, a gambling debt, even a surprise party for the neighbor's dog."

"They're walking near an FBI building," Charlie pointed out. "People with something to hide tend not to do that. At least, not by choice."

"Which is why we're not getting anywhere with that lead," Don sighed. "I don't know about you, but I'm getting damned tired of being jerked around like—"

_Ring_

The dance had begun. Don once again went to pick up the handset, pausing only for David to start his own equipment. His pulse began to race. This was it. "Eppes."

"Are you the Eppes who solves my riddles?" Still sounding like Stephen Hawking on a bad day.

Don caught Charlie's eye. "Yes." And, "I solved your last one. Didn't work out so well, did it? Not quite ready to retire yet on your earnings from the last job?" Don leaned forward, knowing that the attitude would get into his voice. "I've got a great retirement plan for you: three hots and a cot. Great security. Even has solitary confinement when you need some time to yourself, a little getaway when the rest of the lads get a little too friendly. Of course, you don't get any choice over roommates, but we can't have everything, can we?"

The computer voice digested that. Then: "I don't like you."

"Isn't that too bad?" Don sneered. FBI Advanced Negotiating Tactics: push the suspects into mistakes born of anger. "It's really tough when you're not good enough. Those little riddles of yours? Get a life. Anyone uses simple stuff like that, we laugh 'em out of the business." He hardened his voice, and exchanged a look with David. "Or they get shot." He glanced over at Charlie, wondering how his younger brother was taking it. Charlie's eyes were round, but he kept a clamp on his mouth, watching every move Don made.

"C'mon, c'mon," Don urged, keeping the smirk in his voice. "Got another one of those little messages for me? Almost caught you last time. Probably do it this time. Got a real nice judge lined up for the arraignment. Can you afford an attorney? Probably not. We'll be sure to scrape the bottom of the barrel for you."

"Now I know that I don't like you," the computer voice said. The person behind the voice seemed to gain inner strength from somewhere. "And I doubt that you have been solving the puzzles. Good bye." Click.

"Hey," Don objected, "what about the riddle?" But he was talking to dead air. "David?"

"North part of the city," the man reported, "but nothing more definite than that."

"It's a start," Don acknowledged. "You've ruled out three-quarters of the city. What's that? Half a million inhabitants?"

"The last census, using sampling techniques to account for the undocumented—"

"Figure of speech, buddy. David?"

"I'll get some of the guys in Tech to give me a hand," David said. "Maybe they can squeeze something out that I can't." By the tone of his voice, he didn't believe his own words.

Charlie watched the two FBI agents work, at a loss for himself. With no riddle, no code to solve, there was nothing for him to do, no problem to work on. "Don?"

Don recognized the signs immediately. "Sorry, Charlie. Looks like we're not going to be able to use you this go around."

Charlie disagreed. "There's a pattern here, Don. I can almost see it. I need a little time, time to work out the equation that will show the pattern—"

"You think you can figure out where these clowns will hit next? Even without their stupid little codes?"

"The codes aren't really part of it. I can run it through some multi-variate analysis, see if I can come up with a solution with _p_ equal to point zero five or better—"

"Do that," Don ordered, hoping his eyes weren't glazing over. They tended to do that when Charlie started babbling.

"Uh, I need to get back to my office." Charlie looked hopeful. "I've already started it there, and I think with just a little more time, maybe an hour or two, I can come up with something pretty solid. I jotted down some of the things from the case files, some of the details…"

"Right." Don glanced around. "I'll take you back to your office, drop you off. You work on your equations, and call me when you have something. I'm counting on you, buddy," he added. _I really have more faith in squeezing my sources at this point, but I'll take anything I can get._ "There's not much here. You sure you can find a pattern?"

"It's human nature, Don," Charlie told him. "We _all_ fit into patterns. We can't help it."

"Isn't that profiling?" David muttered under his breath, watching the brothers exit.

* * *

"Just drop me off at the main entrance, Don," Charlie directed. "Parking lot's full."

"I'll find a spot." Don concentrated. There one was, a slender box of tarmac about as far from the Math Building as it could be and still be considered part of the parking lot. Don had been unusually quiet during the drive over, thinking. And the thoughts that had been running through his mind hadn't been to his liking. "I'm coming in."

"Why? You hate coming in to my office."

Don pursed his lips. "Let's just say I've got a funny feeling."

"And that means—?"

Don stared ahead, looking at nothing. "Oh, all right. Charlie, I'm getting a hinky feeling about this whole case. Remember how that voice wanted to talk to the 'guy who solved the riddles'?"

"Right. That was you. That's what you told him. He bought it."

Don looked away. "Charlie, he was talking about you. You were the one who deciphered all the codes."

"Don, anyone could have done that. Those were not difficult codes. Your people—"

"But not as fast as you, Charlie. He wanted to talk to _you_. He thought it was you, when you gave me the cube root thing. And after what happened to Megan…" He allowed his voice to trail away. He summoned his courage. "Charlie, he said he didn't want to talk to Megan any more, and then he took her out with a well-planned execution. We're all really lucky that she's walking out of the hospital alive. Buddy, I don't want that to happen to you."

"But he doesn't even know who I am," Charlie protested. "He doesn't know I exist, let alone helping you with this case."

"Beg to differ, buddy. He asked for Eppes."

"But that was you. Unless you've changed your name recently and neglected to let Dad know."

Don took the keys out of the ignition. "I'm not taking any chances."

"You're walking me to the front door of the Math Building? It's broad daylight! I'm a grown man, Don. I don't need a babysitter!"

"You're not getting one—yet. If I find anything I don't like, then you will."

"And just what is it that you won't like?"

"I won't know that until I search your office."

"My office? Don—!"

"The house is probably not a good place," Don continued as if Charlie hadn't said anything. "They know that Dad lives there, too, and it would be harder to plant a bomb undetected. Although they may be aware that he's out of town. I'm going to have the Bomb Squad do a run through."

"They never use the same M.O. twice! They won't use a bomb again! Statistically—"

"So that leaves your office as the primary target area," Don interrupted. "I will search the place for anything suspicious, then I will leave you to your numbers." He grinned encouragingly at his younger brother. "Remember, buddy, I hate being in there. It's messy, and you probably grow cockroaches somewhere in a drawer. I won't stay any longer than I have to."

"Probably afraid that you'll learn something if you stay," Charlie muttered under his breath.

"What was that, Charlie?"

"Nothing, Don. Coffee?" Charlie grabbed at a couple of Styrofoam mugs on the way through the main reception area. "Don't smudge any of the white boards when we get to my office. Those are _your_ equations on them."

Don made Charlie wait outside the office while he examined the interior. He hadn't been joking when he'd said that Charlie kept the place in a state that even chaos wouldn't admit to. Mountains of papers overflowed their bins, cascading onto the surface of the desk so that there was no longer any room to work. Even the computer keyboard was hidden by sheets of white with multi-colored scribblings in a multitude of different hands. It would be a handwriting analyst's field day in here, should a crime ever be committed in this office, Don reflected. Come to think of it, the criminal mastermind had _better_ plant a bomb, contrary to Charlie's predictions. Blow up the place, get rid of the mess, and start over. Clean the place out. It was probably the only thing that ever would. A simple sniping through the window would only add to the mess. Don cringed; he glanced out through the window, automatically cataloging the best angle for a shot from the building across the courtyard. Should he check that building out, too? Not a bad idea. He pulled the shades closed, intending to keep them that way until he could make that inspection happen.

He saw Charlie's equations hand-written on the white board. His younger brother had used three different colors but without help Don wouldn't be able to tell whether it was deliberate or whether Charlie had simply run out of ink. According to Charlie those were the beginnings of the solution to this case, a way to predict where the 'mastermind' would strike next. It seemed incredible, it didn't seem possible, but Charlie had made similar predictions for other cases that had turned out to be astoundingly accurate. Charlie had made a believer out of his older brother. Not that Don would admit to it in front of Charlie. _Gotta keep a little of the sibling rivalry going_. But on a case?

He stirred around through all the papers, anywhere that a bomb might be able to be placed: corners, drawers overflowing with odds and ends. He opened a small closet and actually found a broom with tattered straw for a working edge. "And here I keep hearing how he works in a broom closet," he muttered to himself, well aware of Charlie waiting impatiently outside for the all clear.

"You find anything?"

"Not yet. Keep back."

"You're not going to find anything in there."

"Neither can you. This place is a pig sty! How can you do any work in here?" No, _that_ bag contained an old left-over PB&J, along with a healthy helping of mold. That could be discarded. Don gingerly dropped it into the trash can, trying to remember if there was a men's room with running water and soap at the end of the hall. Next stop: sanitation. "The office is clean. And I use the term to mean free of explosives, only."

"Thanks. I've got office hours in another hour." Charlie repossessed his office. He glared. "You moved stuff. I had it organized."

"So sue me. This my equation?"

"Yeah. But I gotta grade some papers first. The class is expecting them back tomorrow morning, needs them to study for next week's mid-terms. I'll work on your equation during office hours."

"Don't you see students during office hours?"

"Nobody scheduled. Someone might drop in, but that's a sixty-four/thirty-six proposition."

Don groaned. "You've calculated the probability of a student coming to see you unannounced?"

"No. Made those numbers up. Just wanted to hear what you'd say." Charlie grinned, pleased to have put one over on his brother.

Don shook his head. "I'm out of here. Keep the shades down, and wait for me to come get you tonight. I'm dropping by Megan's. I want to get her take on the last conversation we had with our criminal mastermind. I pushed him pretty hard, and I'm not certain how he reacted."

"We didn't get the clue that he usually sends."

"No, and that's worrying me. This type of guy, he wants to prove that he's better than we are. He should keep making the clues harder and harder to solve. This guy just threw a hissy fit and hung up. He was miffed."

"It's not in character."

"That's just it; it's not in our character. But it is in his. 'Cause he did it." Don jerked his thumb at Charlie's equations. "Think you can factor that in?"

The glazed look was already stealing into his younger brother's eyes. "Yeah. All I have to do is figure out how to apply Raymond's Potential without negating the effects of the Personality Dimension Analysis, and…"

Don let himself out quietly.

* * *

Wonderful invention, cell phones. Don couldn't imagine conducting his job any other way, couldn't even remember a time before that. Looking for phone booths all the time, making sure to have change to activate the damn things? Not a chance. Made a great story for the old-timers to share. To hear them tell it, entire cases hung on the chance that the corner pay phone would be working or not. Don used his cell to call Megan at her home.

"Megan? How are you feeling?"

"A lot better, thanks. What's up?"

"Better? Really?"

"No, not really, Don, but my mother brought me up to be polite on the phone. I can't tell you how I actually feel without making her ears burn several hundred miles away. How's the case going? You promised to keep me updated. I have a personal interest in this one, you know."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that." A lot more coherent was Megan, especially when compared to yesterday in the hospital. Don grinned. That was good. He needed her skills, needed her as someone to bounce ideas off of. Both David and Colby were good at their jobs, but Megan came with an entirely different perspective. And, dammit, he was getting tired of chasing this dude! "Listen, you up for some company?"

"I'm not about to get all dolled up, but if you can stand seeing me in sweats and bruises, you're on." Don could hear the grin in her voice. "Besides, you gave me a chaperone. Sherry is here."

"Sherry from Enforcement?"

"Yup. She wanted the overtime. All I had to do was show her where the stash of caffeine was, and she let me sleep."

The smile froze on Don's face, even though Megan couldn't see it. Sherry from Enforcement wasn't a standing joke because no one dared joke about the woman. At six foot one with one hundred sixty three pounds of shapely muscle, Don was certain that the woman could bench press more than he could, and Don was not out of shape. This FBI office had needed a woman who could handle any female suspects, and Sherry more than fit the bill. Megan kept insisting that Sherry had a great sense of humor but so far, Don hadn't seen it. _You would if you were a woman,_ Megan told him.

_Thanks, but I'll pass_.

"I'll be there in a few," he told her. "Listen, I'll see you. There's another call coming in."

"I'll expect you."

Don clicked the call off and caught the second before voicemail could grab it. "Eppes."

"Don?"

"David? What's up?"

"Don, another fax came through. Our mastermind sent the next clue."

"Finally. Coded?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Fax it over to Charlie's office. I'm over here right now. I'll get him a copy and work it right here. You got the number? It's in my desk, right hand drawer, top."

"Don, wait a minute. Listen to me! That's not all that's on this fax."

Don felt ice settle somewhere deep inside. "What else?"

"It's a picture of Charlie, Don. It's a picture of him coming out of headquarters with you. And, Don, there's a sniper's target superimposed on his face."

The ice turned into a massive glacier. Dammit, he'd known something was hinky! He'd done right to insist on searching Charlie's office before letting his brother in, and now was very glad that he had. His brother kept his office open and unlocked all the time. It would have been child's play for someone to plant a bomb there. He glanced up toward where he knew Charlie's office was, third floor toward the end; the window shades were still drawn. Good; he wouldn't have put it past his brother to absent-mindedly roll them up because he needed more light. It would be all too easy for a sniper to take up a position with a line of sight at Charlie.

"I'm outside his building now. Get a bodyguard team down here ASAP; I'll stay with him until they get here. Have the Bomb Squad do a search on his house; they can get the keys from me, but I'm betting that this kook is going to try an assassination attempt. That's what that sniper's target symbol must mean and there are plenty of excellent sites for a sniper right across the quadrangle from Charlie's office. Fax the sheet over, and I'll have Charlie take a look at the code—"

Having lived in L.A. for most of his life, Don was familiar with earthquakes. He'd lived through quite a few. What occurred next bore a significant resemblance to an earthquake in that the earth rumbled under his feet. What was different was the noise: it blasted his eardrums louder than any rock concert and certainly not like any earthquake he'd survived. What was also different was that the blast took out several windows on the third floor of the Math Building. Papers careened out through the broken panes, floating down as gently as feathers.

Charlie's office was on the third floor.


	6. Failure 6

Swimming upstream. That was what it felt like: salmon swimming upstream to spawn, fighting against the tide. Students with the occasional older professor cascaded down the staircase, following directives battered into bodies through decades of attendance at elementary and high schools: _when the fire alarm sounds, go immediately to the nearest stairs and exit the building promptly._

Not that anyone was happy over it. "My books!" one student mumbled, crashing into Don. "Damn stupid time to hold a fire drill," another snarled. "I was in the middle of—" Whatever he was in the middle of, Don didn't care. He pushed and shoved his way up the stairs, battling the crush of bodies that seemed determined to keep him from reaching the third floor.

Second floor. Third—there it was. A big number three pasted on the fire door just below a tiny window.

"Wrong way, guy!" someone growled into his ear. "Don't you know better?"

"FBI!" Don growled back, shoving again, grabbing onto the rail to help haul himself toward the door to the third floor. "Out of my way!"

"FBI? This is for real?" someone asked.

There was a panicked pause, then the rush began. No longer was it a mundane _let's follow the rules_ exodus. With acts of terrorism in the not so distant past, several bright and not so bright brains went into action. Feet moved a good deal quicker. "It's a real fire!" someone screamed.

Don didn't mind. The fewer people to deal with, the better. There could be a second bomb. There could be a third bomb.

Dammit, he hadn't missed anything! He'd gone over Charlie's office before letting his brother in. There was no bomb there! What had happened? Don didn't think that there were any chemistry labs in this building, nothing that could go boom, but he could be wrong. He'd never actually walked these halls, looking into each and every room. There were classrooms and offices. And broom closets. There could be a lab somewhere behind one of the doors. This could have been an honest accident. Someone poured in _this_ when they should have poured in _that_.

Right. And the mastermind had sent over that picture of Charlie because he thought Don needed another photo on his desk.

He squeezed onto the third floor. For a moment he couldn't remember which way to turn. Smoke hung heavy in the air, papers burning in one office. That way. Charlie's office was in that direction. Toward the most debris. Toward the sound of fire snapping.

"Help me!" a girl pleaded, hanging onto the wall, staggering.

"Stairs!" Don barked. He couldn't tell if she was injured or merely soot-stained and terrified. It didn't matter; she needed to be out of here fast. He grabbed her arm. She yelped, but Don shoved her toward the stairwell and safety. She got caught in the exodus and vanished down the stairs along with others.

He stopped another more ambulatory student who was dragging a limp body with him. The limp body looked to be older, possibly in his sixties. _This student's getting an 'A' for sure, even if he's not in this guy's class._ "Where's Professor Eppes' office?" he yelled through the confusion. He couldn't believe that he couldn't remember. But every time he'd come here, he'd been with Charlie. Charlie had led the way. Don had followed. Hadn't paid attention.

"Two more doors down. On the left!" was the yelled response.

"Any more left alive?" Don felt obliged to ask, his heart in his mouth. "Did you see Professor Eppes?"

"Don't know. He in his office? Didn't see anyone else." The kid pulled his victim into the stairwell himself, disappearing into the flood of screaming students.

Help will get here in minutes, Don chanted to himself. Gotta find Charlie. The smoke was getting thicker the closer he came to the center of the explosion. Dammit, he hadn't missed anything! He'd looked everywhere in the office for a bomb! He had! How had the damn thing gotten in during the five minutes he been walking out? Had Charlie been so zoned out on his equations that he'd missed someone tossing in an entire bomb? Not even his geeky little brother could be that focused, could he?

The smoke got heavier, made seeing more difficult. Don was reduced to feeling along the walls for door jams, peering with his nose a scant inch away from the legends that told who worked where. There was one:Geoffrey Langerton. Another mathematician. Don recalled meeting the man when Charlie had invited him over for dinner one night. It had ranked up there as one of the most boring evenings of Don's life. Langerton and Charlie had discussed math all night long.

The door had been blown off of its hinges, and Don could hear the crackling of papers burning inside Langerton's office. Here and there the smoke eddied around, more light trying to enter through the destroyed window panes. Don risked a look inside; it looked as though Prof. Langerton hadn't been in his office. Good; one less life on Don's conscience.

Don kept crawling along the wall. He pulled his turtleneck up over his nose and mouth, trying to keep from inhaling the smoke. Step by step, closer he came to Charlie's office. "Charlie!" he yelled, praying for an answer.

There: another door jam. Another door hanging drunkenly from its hinges. Don grabbed it, tried to pull it open, and the door came crashing down almost on top of him. Don cursed, jumped out of the way. "Charlie? Where are you, buddy?"

It was a mess. The smoke from the hallway was being drawn through the room and out through the blown out windows. Charlie's desk had been upended and the mountains of papers were on the floor. Don stared; there weren't enough papers. Not as many as he'd remembered. There had been three foot stacks of papers to be looked at when he was here just minutes ago. Then, as Don watched, the hot draft grabbed another page and wafted it out through the broken panes. _Why couldn't I have been that lucky when I was in school?_ ran crazily through his brain.

The white boards that held the equation to the case had collapsed, and the wall behind had collapsed on top of them leaving a communicating path to Langerton's office next door at where the juncture of ceiling and wall was supposed to be. Smoke drifted in, sinking down amongst the hot eddies of air currents. There was no sign of Charlie—wait! What was that? Don pulled frantically at the fallen cinder blocks, heaving block after block out of the way, trying to get to the unresponsive body below. It was just a hand, a hand grasping a red marker—all of this he would remember in his nightmares—but it was his brother.

"Anybody hear me?" came from the hallway.

"In here!" Don yelled. "I need help!"

Don was never so glad to see the emergency personnel as he was now. There were two of them, both with yellow coats and canisters of oxygen on their back going unused but the hard hats they wore showed evidence of being rained upon by cinder block dust and other not so innocuous particles. Even as they picked their way into the shambles of Charlie's office, another chunk of cinder block struck one on the shoulder.

"Ouch," he said. "Guy, you need to get out of here pronto. It's not safe."

"FBI," Don identified himself. "I need help here. I have to get him out of here."

"We'd better do it fast," the other said, casting a worried eye upward. "This building isn't very stable right now. The ceiling could collapse at any moment. Can you get out by yourself? We'll take care of your guy. He a witness? A suspect?"

"He's not a suspect, he's my brother, and he's a consultant for the FBI!" Don felt his voice rising, and realized his control was slipping. "I'm not leaving without him."

"Let us do our job—" one started, but the other stopped him.

"Don't bother arguing. These federal types are trained not to listen." He turned back to Don. "You can stay, but stay out of our way and if I say move, you _move_. Got it?"

"Got it." Don shut up. He gotten his reprieve. "Charlie, help's here. We're going to get you out of this. You hear me, buddy?"

No answer. Don refused to let the terror he felt get hold of him again. Charlie would be all right!

Rescuer Number One heaved another cinder block away. "You said he works for the FBI? What a student doing working for the Feds? Undercover?"

"He's not a student, he's a professor. Of math." Don lifted away the white board, revealing dark curls matted with blood oozing sluggishly from underneath. Charlie's face looked astonishingly young, strangely lax with his mind not working.

Don hated it. This wasn't his brother. Even when sleeping, Charlie's brain was on hyper drive. Don couldn't help but reach for the wrist of the hand clutching the red marker, feeling for a pulse.

"Right. Graduate student? I hear they teach classes, too."

"A full professor," Don repeated, grinding his teeth. He compensated by grabbing another cinder block and hurling it away. "Is he going to be okay?" _Please, let him be okay!_

"Gonna do our best. You really FBI?"

"Want to see my badge?" _Just hurry it up!_

"You think this had some connection?" Number Two broke in with a serious note. "My people are going to want to know."

"My office will coordinate with yours," Don told him. "I'll give the name of our Bomb Squad captain. This is an ongoing investigation, so don't throw anything away in this room. Don't overlook anything."

"You think he's going to be able to tell us anything when he wakes up?" Number Two indicated Charlie, lying still on the floor.

Don took heart that the rescuer thought that Charlie would live through this. "I hope so, but I wouldn't count on it. I was worried that something like this would happen. I searched his office not five minutes before the explosion. I didn't find anything, and I looked. I didn't think there was a bomb in here."

"Well, duh." Number One jerked his thumb at the collapsed wall, and hoisted away another cinder block. "Primary site was over there. Next office over."

Don froze. "What do you mean?"

"Look at the wall. Blown from the other side. Gotta get our arson guys in, but I'm figuring that your perp planted the bomb in that office next door. Your guy here just got in the way. You sure they were after your man here? Not after the other guy?"

"Yeah." Short. "I'm sure." _And they wanted me to get the message, too. If the bomb was planted next door, they could have blown it when both of us were in Charlie's office._

Charlie coughed, and Don's heart caught in his throat.

"Charlie?"

Charlie worked his mouth, but nothing came out. He licked his lips and tried again. "Don?"

"Don't try to move, buddy. We gonna get you out of here."

"Wha—?"

"Our guy put you next on the hit parade." Don kept it vague, aware of ears of the rescuers still clearing the debris away to get at the victim. "David got a fax, with your picture on it. He called me, just before the bomb went off."

It was a little too vague for Charlie at the moment. He closed his eyes wearily, then opened them. "My numbers—" He cried out in sudden pain.

"It's okay," Number Two tried to tell him. "Worst is over. Your leg is a little banged up. Just putting a splint on. Gonna hurt for a minute."

A _little_ banged up? Don felt suddenly nauseous at the quantity of blood leaking onto the linoleum. He swayed, and clutched at the corner of the white board to steady himself. Red marker dye came off on his hand. What the hell was wrong with him? He'd never been affected this way at a crime scene before.

_Charlie's blood_.

"Steady," Number Two murmured, gripping Don's arm. "Don't you go out on us. He's gonna be okay. Jimmy, you get through to base?"

Number One held up his hand. "Base, this is Rescue Fifty-One. We have a male, Caucasian, approximately twenty years of age—"

"Twenty-nine."

"—thirty years of age, caught in a building collapse. We're still pulling him out. Obvious gross injuries include trauma and probable compound fracture of left leg, possible head trauma. Victim is awake but disoriented. Vitals are as follows:"

Don tuned him out. He didn't want to hear what was wrong, he wanted to hear that they were getting Charlie out of here _now_.

Another rattle, and more chunks of the ceiling rained down on them. Don leaned over his brother, protecting him from further injury. Something solid struck him on the back and bounced off. There would be a bruise later; Don didn't care.

"Not too much longer now." Number Two kept trying to be cheerful. Don wanted to hit him. "We almost have you free. I'm starting an IV; gonna feel a little stick when it goes in."

Charlie winced. "Ow. Not a little stick," he muttered. "Don, the equation—"

"Damn the equation." Don kept his temper, kept himself under control. "Charlie—"

"Don, I almost have it. I figured it out right after you walked out of the office. Don't let them erase those boards—ow!"

"Sorry," Number One called out. "That's the last of it. Let's board and collar him up and boogie out of here."

"We're getting you out," Don said, hurriedly leaning over to shelter Charlie from another cascade of cinder block dust.

"The equation!" Charlie insisted. "Don—" he coughed, couldn't stop coughing. Blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Water," Don demanded. "Give him something."

"Not yet," Number Two Rescuer told him quietly. "Let's let the docs at the hospital take a look first. Here, give us a hand getting him onto the back board and the stretcher."

The cinder blocks moaned, signaling another imminent collapse of the remainder of the wall beside them. "Gotta move," Number One, Jimmy, said unnecessarily. "You, get at the top of the board. We're gonna slide it under him, roll him like a log on top of it."

"Don," Charlie gasped, "the equation! You've got to take it—" more coughing. More blood. An unrequested groan as they maneuvered him onto the stretcher.

"I'll get it," Don promised. "I'll come back for it."

"Here." Number Two handed over an oxygen mask. "Put this on him."

Don could do that. But Charlie, unaccountably, fought him. "The equation, Don!"

"Charlie, don't argue with me! Breathe in, slow down your breathing. Try to stay quiet. Let these men do their job."

"Can't," Charlie gasped. "Can't…breathe…"

The rescuers exchanged a look. One held a stethoscope to Charlie's chest. "Let's move."

"What?"

Number Two only said, "keep that mask on him. It'll help." He hoisted his end of the stretcher, muscles easily hefting half of the weight.

* * *

David found him in the waiting room, head bowed, still dusty and blood-covered. He handed Don a hot cup of high octane coffee. Somehow it managed to smell incredibly enticing and turn his stomach at the same time. He swallowed hard. "Thanks."

"How is he?"

No need to ask who 'he' was. Don closed his eyes and leaned his head back. The wall behind him was rock solid and uncomfortable. "They haven't told me anything. He's still in surgery."

"Bad?"

"I've seen worse." _Not on my brother. Mostly on corpses_. "You bring the fax?"

"Yeah." David handed it over, careful that there was no one close to the agents. But the waiting room was empty except for a little old lady in the corner, trying to find the correct insurance document for the clerk and having a hard time with it. Don pitied her. Those insurance documents were harder to figure out than the codes the suspect kept sending them. David kept his voice down. "Colby and I worked on it, handed it to the pseudo-geniuses in Tech. Took a while. None of us are up to Charlie-speed."

"Right." Don looked at the scrambled letters, taking them in and not taking them in. Any other agent under his command, he'd demand that they go home and sleep, not look at evidence. A part of him recognized that and tried to tell him to take himself off duty. _This isn't helping, Special Agent Eppes_.

The picture was just as David had described it earlier: Don and Charlie walking out of FBI headquarters, Don slightly in the lead, heading toward the parking lot. The sun was shining, and the picture crisp and clear and black and white. There were at least a dozen pedestrians on the broad pavement area beside him. But someone in a neat and tidy hand had drawn a sniper's target around Charlie's head. The meaning was very clear, even without deciphering the code below: Charlie was next. And he had been.

The letters were the same as they'd been on every other clue, all capitals and nonsensical. Don struggled to make sense of them.

RZC IBF NWLMTWI ,VWYYW VWENBLF ZM OEBM M'IBF T KT

"Did you run this through—"

David nodded. "It took them a while. But then they went back to some of Charlie's earlier algorithms, and Angela Brighton caught it. Not just a simple substitution, but backwards. A really old trick, but it stumped them for a while. They hadn't been expecting it."

"What does the damn thing say?"

David frowned, and looked away. Then he quoted, "'If I can't talk to Charles Eppes, neither can you.'"

Don's fingers whitened on the paper.

"Go ahead. It's a copy. You can tear it up."

But Don got hold of himself. "It's time to put an end to this, David. It was time a long time ago. Before he took a crack at Megan. Before I let him get to Charlie."

"Not your fault, Don. You did everything right—"

"If I'd done everything right, Charlie wouldn't be in this place!" It came out as a near shout. The little old lady and the clerk looked over at them in dismay. Don shoved his anger down, battling for control. He settled for a harsh whisper. "Dammit, David, Charlie's a damn consultant! He's not supposed to be in the line of fire!" He took a deep breath. "This has got to stop." He deliberately took a few moments to think, to demand of himself that he plan. He forced himself to bottle up the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. There wasn't any time for that. "First, we shore up our defenses. Arrange for a twenty-four hour guard on Charlie. Nobody sees him unless we clear it, and that includes hospital staff. You still have Sherry from Enforcement with Megan?"

"No, her shift on regular hours came up—"

"Pull her." Sherry from Enforcement was no joke, and Don wasn't in the mood for joking. "Make Megan a priority. Our boy took her down for two reasons: one, she stood between him and Charlie and two, he thought that a profiler had the best chance of stopping him. That means he may go after her again. Move Megan to a safe house if anything looks suspicious. Megan still may be our best bet at stopping him."

"Consider it done."

"Next: no one, and I mean no one, goes out alone. Not you, not me, not Colby, not anyone connected with this case. Just because these guys went twice for bombs doesn't mean that they won't switch to a sniper's rifle and scope. And nobody goes out without armor."

"But if this guy won't do anything until Friday—"

"We're not going to count on—" Don was interrupted by a man in green scrubs who emerged from behind the closed double doors. Don tried to ignore the leftover blood that stained one corner of his shirt. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he knew who that blood had come from. "Doctor?"

"You're Mr. Eppes' brother?" Don nodded. "He's a strong man, and lucky," the doctor informed him. "His lung is re-inflating nicely, and the leg looks like it should heal. We were able to realign it without any difficulty. He's a lucky man," the doctor repeated. "I understand that the building collapse at CalSci was a bad one. We had a lot of treat and street's come through. Your brother was the worst off."

"His lung?"

The doctor recognized, as had David, that Don was at the end of his rope. "Sit down, Mr. Eppes. Yes, his lung collapsed, but we were able to get to him in time and the leg fracture was fairly straightforward. He's going to be all right."

Good thing he sat down. Don knew that his knees would be wobbling by now. David knew it, too, for the agent surreptitiously took hold of Don's arm in support and Don blessed his lucky stars that he had this man to work with. "Can I see him?"

"Give us another hour," the doctor requested. "He's still coming out of the anesthesia, and we'll need to get him settled. You can see him then." The doctor frowned, remembering. "In fact, I'd recommend seeing him, Mr. Eppes. As we were putting him under, he kept insisting that he needed to talk to you. It's agitating him. Something about a case? Do you work together, own a business together?"

"More than that," Don replied grimly. "I'm with the FBI, and my brother consults for us. I've already spoken with your hospital administration; there'll be heavy security around his room."

The doctor's face cleared. "Oh. That's what I saw, then, those men in uniform. I just thought we had another jailhouse special. Another stabbing from the local prison."

"Men in uniform?" Don looked at David. "Did you already set up a guard detail?"

"Not me, Don. Firemen?" David asked.

"No, not firemen. I know most of them," the doctor said. "I've treated many of them as well. No, these were people in police uniforms. They tried to go into Recovery, but were turned away. It's a sterile area."

Don went cold. "David, I need those guards here ASAP. See if LAPD can help out. Move on Megan, too."

"On it." David hauled out his cell phone, turning away to talk.

"Doc, I'm going to need you to look at some mug books." Don turned back to the doctor.

"Is this really necessary—"

"I'm afraid it is, doctor," Don pushed. "This is a group of criminals whose activities are escalating. My brother was just the latest in their run of crimes. The next job they pull may be lethal. Those people you saw were likely not policemen."

"They're gone now. It will have to wait until I finish my rounds." The doctor pointedly looked at his watch, pushing back.

"We can do that," Don assured him. "Agent Sinclair here will escort you to FBI headquarters. David?"

"I'll be ready when you are, doctor," David told him. "In the meantime, can you give us a description?"

The doctor shook his head. "I'll have the recovery room nurse talk to you. She's the one who turned them away." He shuddered. "If it weren't for her, we could have had another shooting in our Recovery Room."

"Another one?" Don arched his eyebrows. "Does it happen often?"

"Fortunately, no. High stress place, and sometimes tempers get out of control. Usually it happens in the ER."

* * *

But the description by the recovery room nurse did nothing to reassure either agent. The descriptions matched the vague outlines of what the witnesses had told them, but with one exception: this time the three men seemed to be taunting the FBI. One of them left a comment: "Tell Special Agent Eppes that we were here, and that we were turned away." Which did nothing to assuage Don's concern.

It did, however, goose hospital administration to make exceptions in their heretofore iron-clad rules: they permitted Don himself into the recovery room, with his gun carefully hidden underneath a sterile gown and shoes stuffed into charming little blue booties to keep the dirt out, where he got the distinct displeasure of watching his brother have the typical reaction to waking up from anesthesia by grabbing swiftly for a basin. "Very normal," the nurses told him. "Nothing to get concerned about." Hah. Nothing to get concerned about unless you were the one doing the heaving. Don felt nauseous himself. One nurse kindly brought him a stool to sit on, with instructions to stay in that one spot and watch for intruders. And don't move from that spot, because he would get in the way. Seeing all the machinery around that was whirring and beeping and screaming for attention made him promise to do so. The whole set up looked scarier than any shoot out he'd ever been in.

Then Charlie was trying to get his attention. His throat wouldn't work properly—"he had a tube in there just a little while ago, Mr. Eppes. He won't be able to do much more than whisper for a few hours"—but his brother clutched at his hand. "Don."

"I'm here, buddy. You're going to be fine." Don needed to hear that more.

"Equation."

"We're getting it," Don promised, trying to settle Charlie.

"Equation!" The shout didn't emerge from that sore throat but the intent did.

"Charlie!" Don grabbed his kid brother's shoulder, trying to get his point across. "We're getting it. It's part of a crime scene. We can't get in there right away, but I've assigned David to go find it. Be patient. He'll come back with it. We'll get it, buddy."

Charlie stared at him, eyes glazed and trying to stay awake. It didn't work; the narcotics were too powerful. It was just about the only thing that could shut Charlie down. The eyelids faded, and closed. Don sighed in relief.


	7. Failure 7

Don found that it helped to think of it as 'the crime scene' and not 'Charlie's office'. The place was still a shambles, but it was a cold shambles. Someone had tacked plywood over the windows of both Charlie's office and that of Langerton's next door, and papers were no longer wafted about every time a gust of wind blew in. A few would rattle occasionally, but stayed decently in place with the exception of one time that a stack overbalanced and half slid to the linoleum. Cracked cinder blocks were everywhere, spreading concrete dust that tickled his nose. Tall bookcases had fallen over and dumped their contents onto the floor beside the blocks. Don compressed his lips into a thin line. There was grim symbolism in the fact that one of the fallen texts had been written by a Dr. Charles Eppes.

"The preliminaries were right," David said quietly from beside him, report in hand. Yellow 'crime scene' tape tacked off the doorway that they had crossed through. "The bomb was planted in Langerton's office; also unlocked, by the way. We're running a background check on him, just to be sure, but so far it looks pretty clear that Charlie was the target. Placement of the bomb was to ensure that it wouldn't be discovered until too late. Langerton's at a conference in Seattle; has been since yesterday. Some computer thing."

Don didn't say a word. David continued, "the bomb was placed against that corner," and he pointed, "to take out the load-bearing posts and ensure as much damage as possible. We haven't found a timer, but we did find remnants of some sort of radio control mechanism. They set off the bomb when they were certain that this office was occupied."

"When Charlie was here, you mean."

David accepted the correction. "We're trying to run down the radio parts right now—Colby's on it—but I'm told that the parts are pretty commonplace. You can get them at any hobby store. It's doubtful that we'll get anywhere with that angle."

"How about that nurse? She pick out anyone from the mug books?"

Heavy sigh. "Yeah, but the guy has an airtight alibi."

"Breakable?"

"Not unless San Quentin has a work furlough program for convicted murderers that we don't know about. No, DeAngelo has been a good little prisoner for the past four years, looking to get out sometime next year. I've put out a call to the other major metropolitan offices to see if there's anyone on the move in this direction but so far nothing's turned up. The drifters don't fit our M.O. Dead end for right now." David trailed off, unsure of what to say next. A paper rustled in a stray breeze.

Don picked it up, stared at it without truly seeing what was written on the page. He looked at the boarded up window, at the office next door that he could see into past the tumbled down bricks. "I'm getting damn tired of this, David. I'm tired of being half a step behind them, every move they make."

"What can—?"

Don cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Help me with this." He picked up one of the white boards with Charlie's scribbling on it. Some had been erased in the fall, more scorched away by the explosion. "Start copying this for Charlie. Get Colby to help you."

"You?"

"I'm going to see Megan. It's time to get a handle on this man. And put him away."

* * *

Sherry from Enforcement answered the door at Don's knock, and Don had to look up to meet her eyes. The woman was taller than he was and, Don would swear, more broad in the shoulders. Normally she engendered feelings of inadequacy in him but today he was glad she was on the job. "I appreciate your being here, Sherry. And the overtime."

"You're welcome. My nieces also appreciate my getting this overtime, boss. Couple of birthdays are right around the corner." She let him in.

Megan's home was as warm and welcoming as she was. Western influences dotted the walls, reminding Don of his time in New Mexico, lending a comforting glow to anyone entering. A Mexican shawl graced the back of the sofa that Megan lay upon, and a large and decorative sombrero was tacked to the wall above. An oil showing a lone coyote howling to the distant moon hung beside it.

Megan struggled to sit up at Don's entrance, the sling still hampering her movements, but Don waved her back down. "Sit. Lie down. Whatever. You're still on medical leave."

Megan snorted. "I want this bastard as much as you do, Don. You can tell that to Occupational Health. What have you got?"

"Not a lot more, but I intend to give you what I have. Sit down and listen in, Sherry. All brains are welcome," Don invited. He filled his profiler and her bodyguard in on the bombing, and what they'd found.

"But you say Charlie will be all right," Megan pressed.

"That's what the docs say. He'll be back teaching inside of a week, on crutches. I get to bring him home tomorrow. My father flew back last night and is camped out at the hospital." Don leaned back in the easy chair, feeling frustrated. "Profile?"

Megan shook her head. "Ever since my conversation with Charlie, I've been going over my profile of our mastermind, and it still doesn't fit. Pieces are there, but somewhere I'm making a fundamental error. Charlie was correct; profiling is the statistical probability of personality characteristics, but it relies on the judgment of the user. If there's a ninety percent probability I go with that, but what if our suspect falls into the ten percent category?"

"Megan, don't let Charlie's way with numbers distract you—"

"I'm not, Don," she interrupted. She struggled to sit up, Don automatically reaching over to assist. "Thanks. What I was doing was letting the numbers lull me into a false sense of security. I needed to think about the outliers. I need to challenge all the assumptions I made, because somewhere one of those assumptions is incorrect. And," she added with a glance at Sherry, "I think I may know which one."

Don too glanced at Sherry, trailing after Megan. There was an inference there that he was missing. "What do you mean?"

"Take me into headquarters," Megan requested. "I need my reference books. And the computer."

"You're on medical leave."

"And you're here now because we need to nail this perp. Take me, Don, or I'll have Sherry do it, which will leave me without someone to ride shotgun in the car. Get my coat," she added. "You want me to catch pneumonia? Or this criminal?"

* * *

Don hated it when Megan went uncommunicative. It was almost as bad as when Charlie was trying to explain something that Don wasn't understanding. Both ended up with the same results: Don had a severe lack of knowledge. And that he didn't like.

But Megan dove into her books, pausing occasionally to pound a few computer keys. Once she threw him a satisfied look but buried her head back in the text before he could drag the pertinent detail out of her. Another time she asked David for ibuprofen.

And that left Don with nothing to do but watch. David too sat by his side, pretending to search computer records. Colby took refuge in pretending to review the case files.

They watched. And waited.

"You think she's onto something?"

"Of course. She hasn't let us down yet."

"Why isn't she saying anything?"

"She's concentrating. She'll talk when she's ready."

"Oh." Then, "I don't work like that."

"Of course not. You're not a woman, Colby."

"Glad you noticed, Don. I'm really not your type."

More watching. More waiting.

"Did you finish copying Charlie's equation from his office, David?"

"Yes."

"Did you give it to him?"

"I gave it to Colby."

"Colby, did you give it to Charlie?"

"The nurse told me not to. Said he was sleeping, not to disturb him."

"You do what she said?"

"Yup. I didn't disturb him." Big white-toothed grin. "I left it on the table. He can find it when he wakes up."

"Good man."

More waiting. More waiting.

"You think it'll help?"

"What'll help?"

"Charlie's numbers?"

"He's helped before."

"Yeah, but we've had info to feed him. These crimes, the perps haven't left anything behind."

"Charlie keeps saying that there's always a pattern. Trust him," Don said, finding himself hoping that he was right.

They waited.

Megan stretched, and all three men came on point. "You got something?"

Megan nodded, satisfied. "I was right. Or, rather, I was right after Charlie goosed me into re-examining my assumptions," she added.

"New profile?"

"New profile," she confirmed.

"Well? Are we going to sit here playing Twenty Questions?"

"Here I come in from medical leave to help out, and all you can do is pepper me with questions," Megan complained with a grin. "No appreciation at all."

"Megan, you are the most wonderful profiler that the FBI has," Don said obediently if impatiently, "as well as the most beautiful, even with a shiner that beats the one I accidentally gave Charlie as a kid and got grounded for. Now, what did you find out?"

"I started by questioning my assumptions," Megan said. "All of them. My profile didn't fit, so obviously I'd made an incorrect assumption. I thought I knew which one, but it was such a long shot that I had to do more research to justify it. Our criminal mastermind is a clear outlier to the statistics, but the rest of the profile matches. I'm going with it."

"Care to share?"

Megan took pity on Don. "My original profile was for a Caucasian male, between twenty and thirty-five, well-educated, possibly with a degree in science and engineering from a minor league college. Single, keeps to himself, has a strong need to control others. I can move on to a difficult childhood, but that describes a large percentage of our prison population. Got his jollies pulling wings off of flies, that sort of thing."

"Charming," Don grunted. "Obviously you've made a few changes in your profile."

"Yes, I have, but not as many as you'd think," Megan admitted. "All of those characteristics statistically were the highest probability for our guy, but taken as a whole there were several things that didn't satisfy me. The way this guy spoke on the phone didn't fit."

"What do you mean?" Colby wanted to know. "The guy used a computer interface. You couldn't hear his real voice, or any real emotion coming through that thing."

"True," Megan agreed. "At first I thought it was this guy's way of showing off. 'Look at me; I can make a computer sit up and do tricks.' But today I realized that it's something else entirely."

"The suspense is killing me, Megan," Don warned her.

Megan took pity on them. "It was my first assumption. I started to get a clue when I was at home and Sherry was assigned to guard duty."

"And…?"

"My first assumption: ninety six percent of violent serial crimes are committed by men. Not women. But what about the other four percent?" Megan let it hang in the air.

David groaned. "And we all just assumed that it was a man, because most of them are."

"Bingo," Megan agreed. "Our suspect used a computer generated voice to disguise her gender. But violent crime is on the rise among women; there are even all girl gangs out on the street and they're every bit as nasty as their male counterparts. And women can be every bit as controlling as men when it comes to getting what they want." She pointed to the transcript of one of the phone conversations. "That should have been my best clue: she threw a tantrum and hung up the phone when I began to taunt her. She threw another one and escalated when you did the same thing, Don."

"Great. Are you telling me that she wouldn't have gone after Charlie if I hadn't pushed her?"

"No, she would have gotten there anyways, although perhaps a bit slower. We have to remember the basic personality of this woman: she thinks she's better than everyone else, and she's out to prove it. She kept asking to talk to the 'man who solves the crimes.' She meant the 'man who solves her codes', and when you told her that the codes were simple, she was insulted. She wanted revenge. She knew that you weren't doing it, Don, not so quickly. It was Charlie that she wanted to match wits with."

"But, wait a minute," Colby protested. "We're getting three men dressed in black on video cameras at the crimes. They were on the jewelry store hold up. One even waved at the camera. None of the witnesses thought that any of the robbers were female."

"And it's likely that our 'criminal mastermind' keeps her hands clean. She sets up and designs the crime, then the men implement it down to the last detail. That last detail is the timing."

"They always leave the scene about five or ten minutes before we get there," David acknowledged.

"Her calling card," Megan pointed out. "She's rubbing it in our faces, that the crimes are committed and completed just minutes after we solve the riddle but before we can arrive on the scene. She feels superior by leaving us in the dust, literally."

"But how?" Colby was getting frustrated. "I checked out everyone around the building whenever we head out. Everyone checks out. Everyone's clean. Who's watching the building? That's the only way she can time it that close is by knowing just when we solve her stupid riddle and then telling her people to finish the crime."

Megan shrugged at that one. "I profile, Colby. The how's and why's are beyond me. I was hoping that your cell phone idea would pan out."

"Maybe I just haven't hit on the right person," Colby fretted. "Maybe they walk off somewhere to call, and I haven't seen them. Maybe I should review the security tapes again, see if the same person shows up—"

"No."

"Don?" Megan looked up.

"Not a cell phone," Don said thoughtfully, a grim look on his face. "People are too hard to control, and this chick is playing way too many variables. You said she's a control freak, Megan."

"Highest probability," Megan said. "Fits the patterns of behavior and verbalizations."

"She's already controlling three men who do the actual crimes. They'll behave as long as the money is rolling in, but they're probably getting antsy over these latest capers of hers. Your hit and run, Megan; there's no profit in it. That was pure anger, because you wouldn't let her go one on one with Charlie. She thought she could force Charlie to the phone by taking you out."

"How does she know when to get her people away?" Colby brought him back to the original topic.

"You also said she's tech savvy," Don mused. "Still think that?"

"The percentages aren't there—there are still fewer women in the sciences than men—but otherwise it fits. I like it. I can go with it."

"And this is a chick who likes to show off that she knows technology. She wouldn't use a person when there was another way, a way with better control. No independent personality to give her a hard time or back talk."

"I'm not following you, Don," David said, furrowing his brow.

"Yes, you are." Don crooked his finger at his team. "Come with me. Let's go look at my car." A terse grin. "Follow me."

Which is how they found a small black box wired to the bumper.

"I'll call the Bomb Squad." Colby backed off. "Don, you've been driving for how many days with that strapped to your bumper?"

"It's not a bomb," Don said, squatting to look. "It's a radio transmitter. How much you want to bet that our suspect just waits until we hop into my vehicle and roar off, then she calls her team and tells them to boogie?"

"Makes sense," David said. "I've always thought that they sometimes seemed rushed, and other times took all the time in the world."

"Because they _had_ all the time in the world," Don said. "They knew exactly when we'd get there. They could plan, through the miracle of GPS." He turned to David. "This one's yours, David. Get it to Tech and see if you can run down the maker on these parts. They look a little more esoteric. Let's see if it leads us anywhere."

And no one blamed the satisfaction in his voice. Finally: a break.


	8. Failure 8

"I can walk," Charlie complained, trying to open the back seat door to the Suburban. Don turned the engine off, pocketing the keys and turning around to talk to his brother.

As always, the house brought back memories of growing up. Of baseball, and skinned knees, and a myriad of special tutors for Charlie. Even a broken arm, once. But it was Charlie's house now, purchased from their father. Funny, it still _felt_ like Dad's house. He knew that Charlie felt the same way, always asked their father for permission before making changes. _Drawback to inheritance_. Charlie reached over the seat. "Give me the crutches."

"Not a chance," Don grunted, hustling out of the driver's seat to prevent his younger brother from hauling himself out of the Suburban, casted leg first. "Stay right where you are."

"I can take care of myself. They discharged me from the hospital," Charlie pointed out.

"Which doesn't mean that you're ready to charge back to work," Don told him in no uncertain terms, scanning the surrounding neighborhood. "Give me your arm."

"I can use the crutches," Charlie insisted. "I can walk."

"Not fast enough." David slid into the argument, and slid into the other side of Charlie, draping the mathematician's other arm across his shoulders instead of handing him his crutches. "Charlie, we received a picture of you targeted with a sniper's rifle. We're minimizing exposure time by hustling you from the protection of the car to the protection of inside. This is _my_ ass we're protecting, as well as yours and Don's."

"Oh." That put it in a whole new light, and made sense. Of course it made sense; it had numbers. Don wondered if Charlie was estimating the 'percent reduction in travel time from the driveway to the front door that resulted by accepting help instead of using the independent but slower crutches'. Probably was; there was a certain amount of sheer insanity associated with genius, and his brother seemed to have his full share of both. "Okay."

"That's it? Okay? No more arguing?" Annoyance; Charlie would listen to David but not to Don, the senior agent? And Charlie thought Don was pushing the sibling rivalry thing.

"Donnie? You got him? Bring him inside. You want him to catch pneumonia?" despite being a balmy seventy degrees outside. Alan Eppes came to the front door—and out onto the stoop. "Let me give you a hand." Still miffed at being told to come home and wait for Don to bring Charlie home. Alan had wanted to wait and escort his youngest home himself.

"Dad!" Don shouted, suddenly more scared. "Get back into the house! Taylor!" he yelled, calling for the guard that he'd had sent ahead. What was his father doing, coming out to present another target for a sniper? Was his father as crazy as Charlie? Had neither learned nothing all the years that Don was with the FBI?

But Taylor, an overly large and stocky man with—most important—a bullet-proof vest, hustled out and covered his father, shoving the man back inside the house within seconds. Don breathed a sigh of relief and returned his attention to swiftly dragging his brother, broken leg and all, after them. David too covered Charlie's back with a long arm, hoisting up his end of mathematician and almost lifting the smaller man off of his one good foot. In moments they had Charlie inside and lying on the sofa, white and panting. Despite his protestations, walking more than a yard or so was clearly beyond the man.

Don didn't know who to yell at first: his father—or Taylor, who'd let the older man out and into the line of fire.

Alan Eppes intercepted him. "Don't shout, Donnie. I was out the door before he could do anything. He's a nice boy. It wasn't his fault. I forgot what you told me."

"_He_ shouldn't have!"

"It's all over," David said, trying to smooth things over. "No shots fired. No sniper. Where's Garibaldi?"

"Working the neighborhood," Taylor reported. "Shall I call him in?"

"Do that." Don wasn't ready to finish being scared. "You went over the house?"

"Twice. No bombs, nothing to report."

"I didn't find anything out of place either, Donnie," his father put in. "Your brother is safe here. Settle down."

"You're over-reacting, Don," Charlie put in. "Sniping isn't part of this guy's profile."

"Oh, so now you're an expert on profiling, too?" _Didn't anyone see how dangerous this was?_ "And for your information, Megan is reworking her profile. Her _professional_ profile." That sounded snide. Why did Charlie bring out the worst in him? Hadn't Don outgrown sibling rivalry? Why did that feeling of _not good enough_ rear its ugly head every time he was around his genius brother? Don worked to tamp down his anger, to retreat into the professional agent that he was.

Charlie blinked. "Oh. Oh, that will change some of the parameters in my equation. I'll have to get the details from her. Is she back to work? Speaking of which, did you get my work out of my office? The equation I was working on for the case?" He struggled to sit up, struggled and failed.

Don gave him a hand, guiltily wishing he could somehow persuade his brother to go upstairs to bed. He looked so white! Don had never seen him like this, not even when his kid brother had had the flu a decade or two ago. He propped him up with pillows, his father pulling out a blanket to drape over Charlie.

David looked puzzled. "Colby left it in your room, back in the hospital. I didn't see it there when we picked you up, so I thought that you'd packed it away somewhere."

Now it was Charlie's turn to look blank. "I never saw it. And the nurses wouldn't let me have any paper to write on," he complained, his gaze turning accusing when he saw his brother unsuccessfully hiding a grin. "You told them not to."

"You had one arm tied up with an IV and the other protecting a chest tube," Don protested. "You keep doing numbers in your head. How was I to know that this one equation was longer than your hair?"

Snort. "Get my things out of the car," Charlie ordered. "It must be in there. Bring it out to the garage. I'll start on it there—"

"Not a chance, young man," Alan admonished him. "You're not going anywhere. I'll bring you paper if you feel you must work, but you're off your feet. That's what the doctor said, and that's what you're going to do."

Charlie exchanged an exasperated look with his brother. "Ever get the feeling that you've never grown up?"

"No. But I frequently get the feeling that _you've_ never grown up."

"Second that," Alan said.

Charlie rolled his eyes.

David re-entered, carrying in the detritus from Charlie's hospital stay, including a large bouquet of carnations that he set onto the coffee table. The bag of plastics went onto the floor and from there, Don suspected, they would head into the trash. "Nice. Who are they from?"

Charlie shrugged. "I don't know. I thought somebody in your office sent them, for the Bureau. Megan, maybe?"

"She's on medical leave herself," Don reminded him, remembering uncomfortably that he himself had dragged the woman out to track down their suspect. "Not Megan."

Charlie shrugged again. "Maybe the Math Department. A student who's flunking, trying to earn brownie points."

"Let's take the easy way to find out. And the card says…?" David plucked the envelope from between the carnations, handing it over. "Didn't you even look?"

"Obviously not." Charlie accepted it, opened the small white envelope. It took only seconds to read it, seconds for his face to stiffen.

"Charlie?"

"I think it's for you," Charlie said uncomfortably, handing over the card to Don.

Alarmed, Don took the card by the edges, careful not to get any more fingerprints on the paper. On the white stiffened paper was:

EMIT TXEN

Even Don could decipher that one at a glance:

NEXT TIME

* * *

They ran the lead down: the flowers were a dead end. The florist had the receipt for the delivery but the purchaser had paid cash, leaving no trace. Even the receipt had been made out by the clerk, so no handwriting clues remained, simply a piece of paper directing the bouquet to be delivered to Professor Charles Eppes at the hospital. The clerk too had made out the card at the person's direction. The clerk thought that the purchaser had been a woman, but after two days and several large orders in between there were doubts.

But it didn't stop there. A number of the small white cards showed up, all bearing the same legend of EMIT TXEN. They arrived at FBI headquarters, delivered by an eleven year old girl earning ten dollars, they appeared at the main desk of Math Department at CalSci, and one was dropped off by a polite robber dressed in black as he and two compatriots emptied the trays of the clerk at a pawn shop not far from the bank that they had robbed several days ago. The pawn shop owner had been less than pleased, and had shared his feelings with the FBI in detail.

"No code this time," Don said grimly. "Nothing to decipher. What's going on? Megan?"

Arm still in a sling, Megan was back but on light duty. She almost shrugged, and thought better of it. "Good question, Don. Wish I had a good answer."

"Maybe she doesn't want to play, now that Charlie's not here in the office?" David guessed.

"It's a possibility," Megan agreed. "It would fit. She's been aiming her codes at Charlie, whether or not we acknowledged that she was. She must know that he was injured and can't work. Maybe this last job of hers was just to keep her people in line, give them some income while she waits to resume her game. How is Charlie, by the way?"

"Stubborn," Don said with a grimace. "He's got my father fretting that he's not resting. Dad's making chicken soup and all of Mom's old recipes. Charlie, on the other hand, keeps working on the equation that he says will solve this case. He's annoyed because we won't let him go out to the garage to scribble on his boards. And, by the way," Don turned to David, "how close are we to finishing his office as a crime scene? Charlie wants to see how much he can salvage from his work and the students' papers that he needs to grade."

David grinned. "You don't want to know how many students have 'dropped by' to find out how 'Professor Eppes is doing, and if he lost my paper'. I leave it to you to determine which is their priority."

"Wouldn't go back to those days for all the money in the world," Colby commented.

"Not into math, Colby?"

"Liked it and almost flunked it, freshman year, and that cured me of liking it. Moved into something easier. Never had a professor like Charlie, though. Might have made the difference."

"Don't be too sure," Megan teased. "Don, where do we go from here?"

"Nothing exciting, just good, solid detective work," Don had to say. "We follow the crimes, we run down the leads. And we hope for something to break."

What broke was Charlie's equation.

* * *

"I could have come over to the office," Charlie grumbled.

"No, you couldn't," Alan Eppes admonished his youngest. "You're supposed to be resting. This is resting? Put that leg up onto those cushions, like the doctor said to do."

"He didn't say to put it up onto cushions."

"He said to elevate it. What do you think that means, genius son of mine? Why do you think that it hurts you so much? You're not following doctor's orders."

"It doesn't hurt," Charlie told him.

"That's because you concentrate so hard on your numbers. You rest like you're supposed to, it'll hurt like it's supposed to." Alan settled himself onto the sofa next to Megan, perversely pleased at getting the last word.

"You see what I'm up against?" Charlie said, failing to hide the affection.

"The equation, Charlie," Don reminded him. "You said that you have the answer."

"Right." Charlie held up a small white board that had been dragged—and cleaned by the senior Eppes—from the garage. "As I've been saying all along, multi-variate analysis. We get enough variables on the crimes, they _will_ fall into a pattern. We can't help it; it's human nature. We may think that we act irrationally, or can direct ourselves to behave in a random manner, but eventually we disclose a pattern."

"And you have that pattern," Don said, trying to hurry his brother along.

"I have that pattern," Charlie confirmed. "I can fine-tune it as more crimes are committed, but—"

"Next crime will be?" Don cut him off. Charlie could be awfully long-winded. This was not one of his classes.

"They go after unique places that can be dealt with swiftly," Charlie said. "There also needs to be the potential for large monetary rewards. Look at the previous sites: the jewelry store, where they grabbed what they could in less than five minutes and then left. One security guard, that they immobilized first. Few customers to maneuver around. Same thing with the bank; they didn't bother with the safe, that would have taken too long. They simply gathered up all the security people and customers, stuck them in a corner, and took what they could get from the front counters and were gone in minutes."

"But the convenience store, the bank; those aren't unique types of places," Colby protested.

"They are unique within the pattern," Charlie expounded. "After having robbed a convenience store, they've never done it again. Most criminals, when they rob over and over again, tend to do what they know. One convenience store robbed, the second will be just as easy because the suspects know what to expect. They acquire a certain comfort level with convenience stores. Ditto for banks, for jewelry stores, and others.

"Not this gang. They've never attacked the same type of business twice. And that will significantly narrow down their potential targets. We can now rule out all banks, convenience stores, jewelry stores, pawn shops, and," Charlie grinned at Megan, "aquariums."

"Very amusing, Charlie. Can we also rule out mathematics professors' offices?"

"Ouch." Charlie winced dramatically. "Next we eliminate all businesses that don't have ready cash lying out in the open, or the equivalent. They're looking for something readily convertible and not easily traced."

"So what are we left with?"

"There are still a number of possibilities," Charlie admitted, "but I'm hoping that this will improve the odds of getting there before the suspects do. What kind of places does that leave?"

"Movie theaters have the money, but too many customers around to easily control," Don mused. "Department stores? Same problem. They look for stores with well-heeled clients, a few at a time."

"How about an art gallery?" David asked, then shot his own idea down. "No. Not a lot of cash, and the art would be too traceable."

"This is like playing Twenty Questions," Colby complained. "What business has a lot of cash on hand but not a lot of customers at one time?"

Silence. Then:

"Check cashing store." Don was certain.

"That's it," Megan said, excited. "A check cashing store. Not a bank, but with plenty of small bills. Only a few customers at a time, except on a payday. And, since tomorrow is Wednesday, that would be an ideal target."

"Which one?" Colby asked. "There aren't many, but there's over a dozen in L.A., if not more."

"I think I can help there," Charlie put in. "We look at where the other robberies took place—" he struggled to unfold the map and still remain lying on the sofa. Don took it from him, holding the map up in the air so that the others could see—"and if we eliminate the aquarium as an outlier, the majority of the crimes took place in this part of town." He pointed.

"That's do-able," David said. "Off the top of my head, I think there's only one or two check cashing places in that area. We stake them both out, and we'll have our suspects."

"We'll ask LAPD for back up on this one," Don decided. "They have more manpower, and just as much desire to nail these guys as we do." He folded up the map, placing it carefully on the table where his brother couldn't get at it. "Nice work, Charlie. Now take a nap. And put your leg up."

"It's like having two fathers," Charlie grumbled, but did as he was told.


	9. Failure 9

There really wasn't much to distinguish between the two sites: both were check cashing businesses with plenty of small bills on hand, both had minimal clerks handling the customer service, and both admitted that Wednesdays were not usually a heavy traffic type of day. What was significant, however, was that both usually received large quantities of cash in the early afternoon in preparation for Thursday, a common payday for people in the area.

And both belonged to the same guy, a sleaze with too much money on his hands and too much oil in his hair. But he was more than happy to encourage the FBI to help out. "Prevent me from gettin' robbed? Hell, yes! Put in all the people you want, Special Agent Eppes. I got another couple places north of town. You wanna stake them out, too? Just in case?"

Which was how Don Eppes ended up inside a truck outside the site he considered the more likely of the two to be hit. He couldn't see any difference between them, just a funny little feeling that he'd learned not to ignore. _Learned it through plenty of painful lessons._ Megan was with him, as a compromise. Light duty didn't include participating in a stakeout, but after extracting a promise to remain within the safe confines of the truck, he allowed her to be in on what he privately hoped would be a swift finale to this case. _Don't jinx it by saying anything out loud, Eppes. Not that I'm superstitious, mind you…_

David and Colby were acting as the clerks inside. They'd gotten a swift course in how to handle checks from the real clerks, and were busily engaged in what the real clerks would have been doing if they were there: watching the small TV in the back.

"Let's not get into the role too much," Don warned them over the wire. "Stay alert."

"Really good soccer game," was Colby's response. "No football on at this hour, but San Diego is whupping D.C. United. That fifteen year old kid D.C.'s got is pretty good."

"It's a re-run, Colby. San Diego wins, three to one."

"You spoiled the ending, boss."

"Keep your mind on the job," David reminded him. "Oops, got a customer." He went through the motions of cashing the check, coached by the clerk acting as his 'mentor.'

Don checked on the other location, but no action there, either. When it went down, he knew, there would be no time to do anything but trust in the people he had stationed there. They were good people, experienced and ready for anything. He had to trust them, just as he had to trust David and Colby inside. _Let it be this place_.

And Charlie. He had to trust that Charlie's equation was right, that this would be the place that would be the next target. He had had his office phone forwarded to this truck—he'd left his Suburban with its little GPS bug in the parking lot back at headquarters—so that he could interact with the woman masterminding this job without her suspecting, but the tension was still rising. Was Charlie's equation right? Would this be the time that his brother failed him?

_As you failed him_, sauntered uneasily through Don's mind. _Why didn't you check for a bomb next door?_ As silly as that statement was, Don couldn't help the little niggling feeling of guilt. No one blamed him except himself. No one would have looked next door. No one would have expected it. Just like no one would have expected their mastermind to be a woman.

_Mind on the job, Eppes_. He turned back to the screens slaved to the security cameras inside the store. There were a couple more screens as well; he wouldn't put it past the suspects to take out the security cameras as soon as they entered, and Don wanted that footage for a premiere showing in front of a judge. The FBI had installed their own _hidden_ cameras for just that occasion.

Customers number one and two had left clutching their greenbacks. What would get paid next by that pair, he wondered: the bills, the bartender, or the bookie looking to break a couple of legs? How about child support? Don sighed. Not part of the job. He needed to concentrate on the big picture, not the little street scum that went on all over the world.

"Don?"

"Just wishing I could solve a few more problems, Megan."

"I know what you mean. We can't solve all the problems in the world—"

"—so let's concentrate on solving this one. Yeah, I know. I went through the same course at Quantico. Wonder whatever happened to that instructor? I heard that he retired early."

"I think he became a social worker. Worked on the child abuse division somewhere."

"Figures." And, "hope these guys show soon. I hate waiting."

When it happened, it happened very quickly. A car pulled up directly in front of the store, big and black with a powerful engine inside to carry the suspects away with all haste. Don could see it all on the security cameras mounted outside the truck and could see it in living color if he cared to go up front to the driver's seat. Three men dressed in black with ski masks piled out.

"Heads up!" Megan barely had time to get out the warning to the agents inside. "Charlie was right on the money. Literally."

The regular clerk, fortunately, was already in the back room and didn't need to be told to stay there, quiet and hidden. The three suspects wrenched open the door to the check cashing store and stormed in, guns waving.

"Wh—what do you want?" David stammered, raising his hands into the air, Colby behind him. The first man in didn't bother to answer, just whirled and took out the three visible security cameras with three well-placed shots. David screeched artistically with fear.

Another of the men thrust a bag at him. "Fill this up, quick!"

"Don't shoot! I'll do whatever you say," David cried out, playing the terrified clerk to the hilt. "Don't shoot!" _Who was play-acting?_ he would say later. _I really was terrified. _He started ramming bills into the bag, Colby beside him.

The man looked at his watch, motioned to the other two. "We got three more minutes. You heard from her yet?"

"Not yet. We gonna wait?"

"Might as well. She's been right so far, even if she's looney-toons." The man dug into his pocket. Colby tensed, fearing the worst. He balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to dive to the floor and pull out his own pistol.

But the man only dragged out small white card: a small white card the size of a business card. He handed it to David. "You give this to the cops."

"What is it?" _It's okay to bust in any time now, Don. This bullet proof vest is feeling awfully thin at the moment._

"You don't need to know that. The FBI will."

"The FBI? You guys terrorists, or something, to rate the feds—"

It was enormously satisfying to a) kick open the door, b) point his gun and c) yell, "FBI! Drop your weapons. Hands in the air!" Don decided. The capstone to the gratifying moment was the look of utter astonishment that shone forth even from underneath three black ski masks. David and Colby went from terrified clerks to pulling their own weapons out from under their vests and aiming them at the suspects. It was only a matter of seconds before they had the three men down on the dirty floor, handcuffs in place, ripping the ski masks off.

Don recognized none of them but from the grunt from the LAPD detective beside him, that man did. "Been after this clown for two years," the detective told him. "Up to now, he's been too smart to leave a trail."

"This is better," Don allowed. "Hard to squirm out of muck when you've been caught in the act." He nudged the man with his toe, careful not to get in the way of the guns still trained on the three. "Hear that, slime? Start thinking about rolling over on your boss."

"What boss?"

"You know. The one who gave you this." Don held the small white business card with the words EMIT TXEN on it in front of the man's nose.

"I never saw that before in my life."

"Yes, you did. You saw it when you pulled it out of your back pocket," David said.

"Not me, man."

"We have it down on video tape." _Damn, it felt good to say that!_ "Oh, you didn't notice the hidden cameras we installed? We were waiting for you, guy. We knew you were coming. And we had a feeling that you'd shoot out the cameras, so we added a few of our own. Clever, eh?"Don started to tick off on his fingers. "Armed robbery, five to ten. Assault on a federal officer, another fifteen, minimum. Attempted murder—well, I wouldn't count on coming to a parole hearing any time soon."

"Attempted murder!" the man squawked. "I didn't murder anyone!"

"No? I suppose you had nothing to do with the bombing over at CalSci."

"What bombing?" Either the guy was going for an Oscar, or…

"Hm." Don rubbed his chin. Thought poured artistically out of every pore. "It sounds like somebody's been using you. Is that what it sounds like to you, Agent Sinclair?"

"I don't know, Special Agent Eppes." David was working on his own Oscar. "This swamp rat was waving a gun in my face. Tends to make me a bit cranky, don't you know. Not always willing to listen to what he has to say about the person masterminding these capers. No, I think he's going to go down on attempted murder charges."

"Of course, we have proof linking the bombing and these crimes together, don't we, Agent Sinclair?"

"Yes, Special Agent Eppes, we do. Premeditation, attempted murder; why, that's enough to make the D.A's office consider asking for the death penalty. Especially since one of those attempts was on a Federal agent. Judges get very impressed by that."

Don leaned over, got into the suspect's face. He spoke quietly, all false humor put aside. "I'm going to be asking each one of you the same questions. Only one of you is going to get a plea-bargaining offer, and it's going to be the one who cooperates first and best. That going to be you? Or is it going to be one of your friends who have been listening to this conversation _very_ closely?"

The man's cell phone rang, interrupting them. Don pulled it out of the suspect's pocket. "Hope you don't mind if I answer this for you. You seem to be a little tied up at the moment. Handcuffs tend to do that." He flipped open the phone. The caller ID was unhelpful, simply acknowledging that the caller was a known quantity. Don kept it short. "Yeah?" He hoped it sounded close enough to the suspect's own voice that whoever was on the other end would cooperate.

She did. "I'm not getting any movement, and I don't like it. Move out of there now."

"Okay." Don kept it to a single word.

But: "Who is this?" Then a sudden bout of dead air told him that she'd hung up. Don hung onto the cell. She'd clearly suspected something, but now they had more to go on. They had a cell phone number to track down. They could get a name. He looked around at his team, his and LAPD's. "Good work, people. Read 'em their rights, and take 'em on in. We'll be down to question them shortly." He pocketed the cell, waited for LAPD to remove the suspects. He gathered up his team; they'd done well. The case was coming together, and it felt good. The only thing left was to wait for one of the suspects to roll on his boss and gather her up. The end was so close he could taste it.

Megan was waiting for him inside the truck. She'd listened to his orders and stayed inside, watching the scene unfold on three cameras. "Think they'll crack, Don?"

"You're the profiler. What do you think?"

Megan snorted. "How often do I say to trust the instincts of the agent on the scene? How did they respond?"

Don couldn't help the smirk that insisted on easing itself onto his features. "I gave Colby odds that at least one would be begging for a chance to sing before they reached precinct. I had LAPD split them up into separate cars, just to help with the personal tension. You want a piece of the action? I'm offering three to one."

"Special Agent Eppes! Betting on the job! Besides, I wouldn't take any odds on any of them." Megan gestured to the phone. "You want to call Charlie? He'll be relieved to hear that his equation worked."

"Yeah, it did predict the next location," Don acknowledged. "And, with any luck, we'll be able to haul in the woman behind all of this as soon as we pull a name and an address from the cell phone number. That should wrap everything up. Even though she didn't call to taunt us this time. I'm almost disappointed."

"No need. She thought that Charlie wasn't helping us, so there wasn't any point in sending a code. Call Charlie. He'll be pleased to hear from you."

Don pulled out his cell, hitting speed dial.

"Hi, you've reached the Eppes residence. Please leave a message."

"Dad? Charlie? I know you guys are there. Pick up."

Silence.

"Pick up. Taylor, Garibaldi? Anybody? Pick up. This is Don."

Beep. The timer cut him off. It felt odd. His father, at least, ought to have gotten to the phone.

He tried again. This time when no one picked up, he got worried.


	10. Failure 10

The last thing that Charlie remembered was his father fussing over him: tucking a blanket around him, propping his cast-covered leg up on yet another pillow, and insisting that Charlie take a nap. Charlie had given in; it was too much work to convince his father to bring him something to work on and the pain killers that Alan Eppes had forced on him were kicking in. Sleep had followed within minutes.

The next thing he knew, something cold and plastic smelling was being forced over his nose and mouth. He tried to yell, tried to force it away, but he could barely move his arms and legs. His head swam.

"Don't fight," a female voice hissed into his ear, "or I'll shoot the old man."

_That_ penetrated. Charlie froze.

"Better," she told him. "Now get up and walk to the car."

The cold plastic was an oxygen container, he found out in the next few moments, and it smelled vile. His assailant was a young woman in her twenties who was holding her own oxygen mask over her face and what looked to be a small cannon in her hand. She aimed it at Alan Eppes, slumbering peacefully in the easy chair. The bodyguards that Don had assigned—Charlie had protested at the time, thinking it was overkill. Now he knew better—had slumped to the floor. Garibaldi had been headed for the phone, and Taylor looked as though he'd tried to smash something through the window before he'd been overcome. For the first time, Charlie regretted getting the higher quality windows. Cheap ones would have shattered under the impact of the plastic baseball trophy that Don had won as a kid and that his mother had cherished.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. This young woman had somehow introduced some sort of gas into the house, and everyone had fallen asleep before they were able to call for help. Charlie wondered how she'd done it, then withdrew the question. Anyone with enough technical savvy to put a computer through what she had would find it child's play to gas the occupants of his house into unconsciousness. And, given what she'd already done, Charlie could well believe that if he resisted she'd put a bullet straight into his sleeping father. He stumbled out to her car, barely able to keep his feet even with the crutches.

"You won't need those." She tossed the crutches away onto the lawn, leaving him clutching the frame of her car for balance. "Get into the trunk."

"The trunk?"

"Yes, the trunk," she told impatiently. "For a genius, you're not too bright. But then, I knew that long ago." She keyed open the trunk to her car—dark blue sedan, California plates, C3141—she forced him in before he could see the rest of the numbers, shoving him down onto the floor of the trunk to bang against the un-inflated spare tire.

_Sorry, Don. Listening to you taught me to pay attention to the details, but what do I do if I can't tell you those details?_ The trunk slammed shut, leaving him in darkness.

* * *

Dammit, where was the LAPD patrol car? Don had sounded the alarm as soon as he couldn't raise anyone at his father's—Charlie's—house. They should have been there by now; no, there they were, sirens screeching as if they'd floored it from Hollywood Boulevard half-way across town. _I take back all the nice things I've been saying about the locals. They respond to emergencies like kids to cooked carrots. _Which wasn't fair or accurate, but Don wasn't in the mood to be reasonable. Don slammed on the brakes, jerking the Suburban to a halt just inches from the garage, jumping out of the driver's seat and racing to the front door. David was inches behind him.

The front door wasn't locked. And Charlie's crutches had been tossed onto the front lawn.

"Dad!" he yelled, frantic. "Charlie!"

"I'll get the back." David knew the drill. There was danger here. Guns were drawn.

The first whiff of foul air caught Don hard, sent his head reeling. He staggered back, then grabbed his handkerchief and slapped it over his nose and mouth to charge recklessly forward.

Windows. Windows first. Dammit, did Charlie paint them shut the last time he went on a home improvement frenzy? No, the latch gave and Don hoisted the pane open, breathing deeply of the clean outside air and letting the foul stuff out. "Get an ambulance!" he yelled to the oncoming local cops.

There were three bodies overcome by the fumes, only one plopped into a chair. It was that body that he aimed for first: his father. The gas stole Don's strength as he seized the older man under the arms, dragging him toward the front door. Then David materialized next to him, grabbing one side, sharing the burden. They pulled the senior Eppes outside, depositing him carefully on the front lawn before dashing inside to rescue the two agents that had been assigned to prevent this.

"Where's Charlie?" David put into words what Don was wondering himself.

"Upstairs?" _Please, please, let him be upstairs_. His brother had to be upstairs, overcome by the fumes drifting upward, dragged up there hours ago by a caring father aided and abetted by a couple of solicitous agents assigned to ensure the safety of the FBI consultant. The crutches outside were… well, they just were. Charlie _had_ to be upstairs.

"Take this." The patrolman shoved a small green canister into Don's hand. Don stared at it stupidly before recognizing it: oxygen. With a mask. "Put it over your face," the patrolman urged, as if Don didn't know what to do with the thing. At the moment, with adrenaline stuck on high, Don didn't.

Training took over. Don savagely twisted the little bottle to open and pressed the plastic-smelling mask to his nose. Sweet oxygen assailed him, and he headed for the front door and the stairs. The gas burned his eyes. He dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, too terrified even to pray. The door to Charlie's room sat open, inviting him to witness what lay within. _Mocking him_. Would there be a body in there, lying on the bed, overcome by the gas?

Empty. No Charlie.

Don's world came crashing down. Again. Only this time, there were no cinder blocks to dodge.

* * *

"Two of them broke," Megan greeted him at headquarters, no smile on her face. David must have called ahead, Don realized. There was no other way for Megan to be aware of what had transpired at his father's house. Charlie's house. _Whatever_. "We have a location, and a field unit ready to roll at your signal."

"Good." He had to say something. Anything more than monosyllabic grunts would emerge as hysterical and panicked screams, and that was unbecoming to an FBI agent. Of course, getting himself kidnapped was unbecoming to an FBI consultant, but that hadn't stopped Charlie.

He swallowed hard. He had to get control of himself, recognized that his thoughts were becoming a little less than coherent. _Panic does that to a guy_.

Megan moved to a safer topic. "Your father?"

"He's at the hospital, fighting with the doctors. Wants to go home right now. They're keeping him for observation for a few hours. I'll pick him up tonight."

"He's all right, then. Garibaldi and Taylor?"

"Knocked for a loop, but they'll be fine. They're already released, and being questioned by our people. We found the conduit that she used to pipe in the gas, and the Crime Lab is working to identify the substance. That should give us more leads, if we need them. You said that two of our suspects broke?"

"Just as you predicted. The first started babbling half way to the LAPD station and the other as soon as they shut him in holding, away from the lead character from the bust."

"You have a location?"

"We have a location," Megan confirmed. "How do you want to play this?"

"I want to play it so that I don't get Charlie killed!" Don snapped. He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Megan. You didn't deserve that."

But Megan put into words what he had been dreading: "You need to take a step back on this one, Don. You're too close to the situation."

"He's my broth—"

"You're too close," Megan insisted quietly. "Turn this operation over to David, or better yet, let the LAPD SWAT team handle this part. They're ready to roll; Colby already got the warrant and SWAT is set to move on our signal." She gave the word 'our' just the slightest emphasis, reminding Don that they were a team. That he wasn't alone, and that there were people he could count on to help. "You're too close, Don," she repeated. "Step back."

It was a long moment. It could have gone either way. He could have screamed out his frustration at the profiler or—Megan was right. Don took a deep, shuddering breath. "Tell SWAT to move in as soon as they're in position. Tell the captain it's his call."

Megan nodded ever so slightly, approving. "That doesn't mean that we intend to wait politely off to one side."

"You're staying here. You're on light duty."

"So I'll wait in the truck," Megan shrugged. "You can keep me company. I don't think I could stand not knowing what was going on." She indicated the white cotton sling. "It was my arm that got banged up, not the part of me that does the thinking. Or the worrying."

* * *

It was a small house in a middle class neighborhood. Colby's rapid fire research turned up that it had been rented to a woman calling herself Charlotte Eppes just a couple of months ago. "Think it's a phony name?" was the bitter mutter. The block was cleared by SWAT personnel, and the neighbors questioned: the occupants seemed to be quiet and kept to themselves. In fact, most of the neighbors weren't even sure that anyone lived there. A couple of cars would be parked in the driveway, then would leave for days at a time. Sometimes they'd see a woman, and one neighbor was quite clear that she'd observed three men going in and out but when given pictures of the suspects she was unable to verify their identity.

But the warrant was good. The captain of the SWAT team, making sure his team was in place and all exits covered, gave the signal.

The point man and the back up sidled up to the house. He rapped on the door, standing clear so that any shots going through the opening would miss his vested torso. Best case scenario: the occupant would come to the door to see who it was and get grabbed. SWAT could then swarm the house with no loss of life on either side.

It didn't work out that way.

There was no answer to the point man's knock. He knocked again. Still no answer. A questioning raise of the hand to his captain; the captain looked at Don, sitting beside Megan. Don remained stone-faced, barely daring to breathe; no help there.

The captain made his decision: _go ahead_.

Point nodded. One last knock, this one more demanding. Then: "LAPD! Open up!" And the back up rammed in the front door. "Go! Go! Go! Go!"

Men in blue with vests and face shields, guns in hand, swarmed in the door. Don knew the same thing was happening at the back door. He listened, dreading the anticipation, waiting for the sounds of shots fired that would tell him that he had suddenly become an only child.

Nothing.

Don took a breath. Still nothing. Beside him he could feel Megan re-start her own breathing. Unbidden, his hand started to shake, and he sternly commanded it to stop.

Several centuries later—was it really only three minutes?—the point man emerged to wave an all clear. "Deserted," he reported to his captain, making certain that Don and Megan, at the captain's elbow, could hear. "We searched the place. Recently abandoned. There are some clothes, dishes in the sink, that sort of thing."

"Woman's clothing?" Don asked.

The point man nodded. "Size sixteen long. Whoever your mystery woman is, she's not the petite type. It looks like she hustled out a couple of hours ago."

"Which is when we took the other three down." Don felt no joy in the realization. "She must have figured that we'd crack her people." _Which means that I'm the cause of Charlie's kidnapping and my father being nearly asphyxiated. Retaliation_.

"Retaliation," Megan mused, unconsciously echoing his morbid thoughts. "It fits the profile, Don. She's angry that we out-thought her. We correctly predicted her next move. That upped the ante."

"So what's her next move? Murder?"

Megan refused to give him false hope. "It's a possibility, Don. It's just as likely that she'll use Charlie to taunt us with, but we've been pushing her hard. We can't afford to stop. Charlie's life depends on our ability to follow where she leads."

"Then we'd better find her fast."


	11. Failure 11

Dr. Larry Fleinhardt shook his head, perplexed. He stared at the white board, hoping for divine inspiration because mundane human thought wasn't good enough. "I'm sorry, Don. I can't help you. I wish I could."

"What do you mean, you can't help me? You work with Charlie, you speak the same language that he does." Don was working hard to keep his tension from exploding. He had dragged Charlie's colleague and former mentor to the garage where Charlie did his work in desperation. It was as messy as it had always been, dust twirling up in small dust devils as the group tip-toed through the debris. Larry held a handkerchief to his nose and sneezed.

"Bless you."

"Thank you. I work with him, but we do not, and let me stress _not_, speak the same language. I am a physicist, and we use numbers as symbols to describe the physical phenomena that we observe in the universe. Your brother is a mathematician, someone who can manipulate those symbols to describe and then predict outcomes that elude ordinary man. I can no more understand this equation of his than I could understand Lithuanian. He makes symbolic leaps of mathematical blind faith that baffle me. Amita?" Dr. Fleinhardt turned to the young girl beside him.

But she too shook her head. "I can't keep up either. I comprehend parts of it, but I get lost here"—she pointed—"and here,"—she pointed again— "and here,"—a third poke at the scribblings on the white board. She looked at the team from the FBI with a sheepish look. "Shall I go on? There are several more places where Charlie makes a leap of logic that I can't follow. I can get it when he explains it to me, but I have to be honest: he leaves me in the dust." She grimaced, taking in the surroundings. "Literally."

"So you're telling us that you can't tell anything about where this bitch might be hiding Charlie?" Colby said, voicing Don's despair. "This equation doesn't mean anything?"

"Oh, it means plenty," Dr. Fleinhardt assured him. "But then, so does the Rosetta Stone. Egyptian hieroglyphs. Ancient Sanskrit. Church Latin. If you can understand them, they'll tell you plenty."

"Hey, I studied Latin in high school."

"Do you still understand it?"

"I can say 'E Pluribus Unum' with the best of 'em," Colby admitted. "After that, I fall down."

"Then you see my point." Larry thought better of resting his backside against a convenient piece of wood. Several splinters to either side convinced him that discretion was the better part of valor.

"So we need a translator," Don decided. "Who's a good enough mathematician to make sense of this? Somebody at Princeton? MIT? Stanford? Oxford, maybe?"

"Without reference points, it would take days if not weeks to decipher what Charlie had figured out," Amita said. "But Don, I think that you don't need this equation. I don't think it will help you."

"Why not? Charlie was able to predict where this chick would send her goons. We picked them up. He was right."

"Because he was trying to determine the most likely probability of a location for a robbery," Amita explained. "He factored that into the equation. I recognize some of the location variables. Here, this numerical phrase and this one: those are used to rule out some of the less likely possibilities. And it looks like he was able to successfully incorporate some of the personality dimensions. He must have listened to what you had to say, Megan."

"Nice to know that someone does." The humor fell flat. The situation didn't support it.

Amita went on. "But this equation is unlikely to predict a location for this woman has gone to. It looks for crime sites. This woman is in a place where she can hide Charlie." _Or Charlie's body_, went unsaid. Perhaps the graduate student hadn't thought of that angle. Every FBI agent present wished that they didn't have to.

"So, bottom line," Don said grimly, "is that we're clueless."

* * *

"Did you enjoy humiliating me?"

For the life of him, Charlie couldn't figure out what this woman in front of him was talking about. Of course, trying to think when his leg was throbbing, his head playing the 1812 Overture in cut time, and his shoulders in the process of being ripped out of their sockets by the ropes stringing him up to the rafters didn't help matters. Is this what Don put up with in his job, the parts that he wouldn't talk about? His admiration for his brother rose substantially.

The trip to here, where ever _here_ was, was mercifully blurred. It took, he estimated, some thirty minutes to get here. The actual number, he calculated, was between 41.93 and 20.97 minutes. There had been 2516 heartbeats during the time he was in the trunk of her car, and, assuming that the average heart beat 60 to 100 times per minute, and that his might have exceeded that number on occasion due to the roughness of the ride…Numbers were always better to work with.

She slapped him. "Pay attention!"

Charlie blinked. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate. "What did you say?"

"I said," and she stuck her face close to his, "did you enjoy humiliating me?"

What was she talking about? Charlie took a stab at it, hoping to say the right thing. "Actually, I found it very difficult to predict where you would strike next. The equation was extensive. I had to test some very questionable hypotheses. Most of them didn't work."

She stared at him. "You're an idiot. You really don't know who I am."

Confusion, this time. "Have I met you?"

"Yes, you have, _Professor_ Eppes." She drawled out the title as an insult. "You flunked me."

"Oh." Charlie really didn't recognize her. She was tall and blonde, lots of leg with a hard look to her, the type to stand out in a crowd as someone who could sleep their way to the top of the Hollywood sleaze list. It had to have been his freshman class. There could easily be two hundred students in the lecture hall, and he'd taught that class for the last few years. It was only his upper level classes where the numbers dwindled down to a recognizable few and he'd learn names, and most of the students at that level tended not to fail. Some of the freshmen came to see him, to talk and to learn, but the majority simply wandered off to their next class… What should he say next? What could he say to a former and disappointed student? "I'm sorry."

"Oh, I think you're going to be a lot more than _sorry_," she said cryptically. "Want to listen when I call your brother?"

"My brother?" Charlie hated it when he couldn't think straight. It had happened once before; he had had the flu, and a fever, and he'd let himself get run down working out that problem based on Wernicke's Theorum—

_Whack!_

He saw stars. He tasted blood on his lip. "Stop that," he said irritably. _Can't make things worse now, can we? _

_Yes, we can_. "Know what this is?" she asked conversationally, holding up a long piece of metal with two prongs on the end it.

_I don't think I want to know_.

"Yes, you do," which is how Charlie realized that he'd actually spoken aloud. She casually rammed it into his side and squeezed the trigger. Fire dripped through him, sending him reeling and an unannounced scream echoing through the rafters.

His kidnapper only laughed. "Yeah, that's kind of how I felt when I saw my final grade posted. Let's go call your brother."

* * *

He didn't want to answer the phone. He really didn't want to answer the phone. What Don Eppes wanted to do was to crawl under a rock somewhere and pretend that this whole case wasn't happening. How could everything have gone so wrong? Worse; how could he face his father? Could Don get away with sending someone else to pick up the man from the hospital tonight?

No. No matter what, Don would face this with his father, shoulder to shoulder. His father wouldn't blame him—well, maybe he would. Charlie wouldn't have gotten involved with the FBI if it weren't for him. The NSA was another story, but the NSA hadn't gotten Charlie kidnapped by a crazy bitch who liked to send out cryptic messages. According to Charlie, the NSA had kept him safely locked up in a little office with a white board and a computer until he was ready to come out with the answer. The FBI had turned out to be a little more immediate, a little more hands on. A little more danger.

And he damn well didn't feel like answering the phone. Little bitch hadn't called them for the last caper, just sent her people out. In a snit, she was; all pissy because Don hadn't let her talk directly to Charlie. But it could be her, with her computer-generated voice to cover her real identity. A ploy to throw them off the track. It had worked, for a while. Then Charlie questioned the assumptions. And Megan questioned the assumptions. And then the FBI reeled in the three expendable crewmen by out-thinking their bitchy boss. Little Miss Cipher was now out there all on her own. No henchmen; that ought to tick her off. Ticked her off enough to snatch Charlie.

He supposed he ought to answer it. Colby was out there, tracking down the components to the gas and the tubing that the bitch had used to pipe in the gas in Charlie's house. It might be a clue.

It was better than that.

"Eppes."

"Too bad I can't talk to your brother," said a husky female voice. "Oh, wait. I can. He's right here."

Don's lethargy vanished in a split second. He snapped his fingers frantically at David: _get the tracer_ _going now! _David all but vaulted his own desk in a race to beat time itself in starting the equipment. He pounded on the buttons, twisted the dial, and stared at the readings, willing the information to arrive. It would take valuable minutes. He nodded at Don: _working. Keep her talking. Keep the connection live_. Megan sidled up to Don, quiet, adding non-verbal support.

Don put it on speaker phone, so that the rest of his team could hear, could give him silent and immediate feedback. David was shaking his head, watching the timer on his board: _not yet. Need more time._

"Let me talk to him," Don demanded. Rule One in the FBI manual on kidnapping negotiations: make sure the kidnappee is still actually in the kidnapper's possession. And alive. Preferably both.

"No, I don't think so," she replied thoughtfully. Taunting. Teasing. Her own voice, not the computer generated nonsense. Maybe she left that equipment in another abandoned hideout…

"How do I know that you have him?" _Charlie's smart; he could have escaped…_

"Oh, I've got him. You know that very well, Special Agent Eppes."

"Prove it."

"You really want me to, Donnie boy?" More taunting, this time with more bite to it.

Don raised his eyebrows at Megan, alarmed. _Do I push?_

Megan didn't know. She lifted her shoulders helplessly. There was a threat in the woman's words, but what that threat was, Megan had no idea. The FBI rule book didn't cover this part.

_How much longer?_ Don mouthed at David.

Another unhelpful shrug from a team member. _Maybe sixty seconds? Ninety?_

Don bit his lip. "Let me talk to him," he told the handset, astounded at how steady he was keeping his voice. _You're a damn fine agent, Special Agent Eppes. Are you good enough to keep your brother alive?_ "I need proof that he's still breathing."

"We all have needs, Donnie boy. You haven't asked me what mine are yet."

"What are your needs?" he asked obediently. Across the table David nodded. _Keep her talking. Almost there._

"I need a million dollars, in small unmarked bills. I need free passage out of the country."

"It'll take time."

"Better not take too much time. In fact, it had better not take beyond four o'clock today. I've got your brother here. He might not be a very happy camper if you make me wait too long."

_Push_, Megan inserted. _Nothing to lose on this point_.

"We haven't established that fact yet," Don told the phone. "Let me talk to him. Prove that you've got him."

"Okay. I guess he's earned this," she said cryptically. "Professor Eppes, your brother wants to hear from you." They heard some rustling, the sound of footsteps as shoes approached the victim.

"Don?" Charlie's voice cracked. Don's heart clenched. Until now, he could have fooled himself into thinking that this was all a horrible joke. That his brother was actually at CalSci, teaching some unruly freshman class, trying to drum differential equations into heads better suited to quoting Faust and Brittany Spears… "Don, sea pie—"

Don had heard that next sound more than once. LAPD used stun guns rather than conventional weapons whenever possible as a more humane alternative to blowing the suspect away with bullets. The _crickle_ _crackle_ of voltage crossing through air from one electrode to the other was unmistakable.

This was deeper, the sound lower in pitch. Don had heard that, too, although not for several years. That episode was ingrained in his memory: it was a escapee retrieval, a man who'd jumped bail that they'd cornered in a bunk house on a ranch somewhere in the back of Nowhere, New Mexico. The man had very little to arm himself with, but he'd made do with what he could find. What he'd found was a cattle prod. Same principle as a stun gun but with a lot more pain and suffering associated. Stun guns would take someone down and be done with it. Cattle prods pushed large animals around through the judicious application of discomfort. Cattle prods pushedconfessions out of recalcitrant prisoners in third world countries where human rights were considered an expendable luxury.

This cattle prod pushed a scream out of Charlie that Don would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his days. He broke out into a sweat, clenching the phone until Megan was certain that it would shatter in his hand, listening to the gasping sobs of a man trying to catch his breath after being tortured.

"I'm liking this," the woman said across the miles. "I'm teaching two pigs that they don't mess with me, both at the same time. Guess we can talk about efficiency, can't we, Professor Eppes?"

The second scream didn't have the same length or energy behind it.

"Stop it!" Don yelled at the phone. "Stop it! You've made your point! Stop it!"

"Ooh, hit a nerve, did we?" She giggled, pleased with her own play on words.

"Don't hurt him any more," Don begged, trying to catch David's eye. _How much longer?_

David too had sweat breaking out, trying to coax more speed out of his tracing equipment. _Not yet. A few seconds more. Almost there…_

"I'd start working on getting my money together, if I were you," she told him. "You're flunking Professor Eppes' class on how to rescue him. Not real fun to flunk out, is it? Professor Eppes knows that. At least, he knows it _now_."

The next scream was definitely weaker this time. Don fought down a curse.

David shook his head at Don. His own hands were shaking over the dials. _Keep her talking. A few seconds more and we'll have her…_

He had to keep the woman on the phone. _Had_ to keep the connection alive, so that David could complete the trace. He steeled himself. "Sounds like you know what it feels like, flunking out. That your problem, sister? Flunking out? Just not good enough? A failure?" He drew the word out, trying to make it last. Trying to keep the connection alive. _More time._ _More time_. _Charlie's life depends on it_.

"I am good enough!" she screamed back at him, stung. "I am good enough! I'm better than you! And I'll prove it! I'll prove it!" She hung up on him, but not before Don and the other could hear the remnants of one last cry.

"Dammit!"

"David?" Praying. Hoping against hope.

The agent shook his head. "Got a partial, Don. I've narrowed it down to this sector," he pointed to an area on the wall map, "but I can't be any more specific than that."

"Twenty blocks," Megan realized. "She gave us until four o'clock. Don, we can't search that many blocks, not in time!"

Don closed his eyes, praying for divine inspiration. "You're right; we can't. We have to outthink this bitch. We've already seen that. When we follow her trail, we lose. When we outthink her, when we grab the initiative, we win. We got her gang by predicting where they would be. We have to do it here, too."

"Don," David protested, "Charlie was the one who predicted where they'd hit. It was his equation—"

"We've got twenty blocks to narrow down." Don glared at his team, daring them to come up with a solution. "We're damn good federal agents! We've solved cases without Charlie, by using our own brains! So _think_, dammit! What do we know about this bitch?"

Megan turned to David. "Play the tape back, David," she requested, radiating a brittle calm. "I need to hear it again." She glanced over at the senior member. "Don, you don't need to stay through this."

"I'm staying." Short. Hard.

It was worse the second time around, worse because he knew what was coming. Knew that the next moment would bring another cry of pain, wondering if he could have phrased things differently so that the bitch wouldn't have hurt Charlie. Wondering if he could have said _this_ or _that_, just to buy David those extra seconds he needed to pinpoint where the bitch was holding his brother.

Profiling: the application of psychological principles so that a character description could be drawn of a suspect. Had learning all those principles allowed Megan to learn how to divorce herself from her real emotions when she needed to? Don envied the profiler her composure. Megan sat there, arm in a sling, making notes with a pencil on a spare piece of paper. She listened, and listened again, ignoring Don's attempts to draw blood from his own lip.

Don couldn't stand it any longer. "Megan?"

"Female, early twenties," she said. "And Don, I think she might be a former student of Charlie's."

"_What?_"

"Listen to what she says. No, not _what_ she says, but _how_ she says it. Listen to how she addresses you: Donnie boy. Only once does she address you by your title of Special Agent, and that only when she wants to make the point that she's talking to the FBI. The other times she mocks you with the diminutive form of your first name."

"And—?"

"She never does that for Charlie. Charlie is always 'Professor Eppes', as though she's accustomed to addressing him in that fashion. Accompanied with the reaction you got when you talked about flunking…" Megan nodded slowly to herself. "This may not be about out-smarting the FBI at all, Don. This may be about Charlie, with you as the convenient lever. This could be personal. Let's get a list of the students that Charlie's flunked over the last couple of years."

"'Professors don't fail students; students fail themselves,'" David murmured.

"What was that, David?"

A weak smile. "Something one of my own professors told me, back in school. A course in sociology, that was not going well. 'Professors don't fail students; students fail themselves.' After that talk, I started applying myself."

"How'd you do?"

"B plus." Another weak smile. "He told me it would have been an A if I'd worked that hard all semester long."

Don nodded. "We're all going to be working that hard for the next few hours." He looked at his watch. "All right, people, we've got three hours, and presumably this bitch will call back at that time to tell me where to take the ransom. After the last ransom fiasco, she won't be taking my word for anything. David, be ready. I want you to be able to pinpoint her location as fast as possible, if we can't find her before that."

"On it."

"Megan, requisition the manpower you need with highest priority. Go to CalSci and go through their records. Get a court order if they won't cooperate. Get Larry Fleinhardt to intercede for you. Whatever. Just get me a list of possibles. I'll get Colby to—" He stopped short, thinking.

"Don?"

"Run the tape again."

"Don?"

"Just do it."

David pushed the button on the recorder, listened to the whir of the tape rewinding, the click as it started forward. They had almost memorized the words—

"There. Stop it. Those two seconds."

"Don?"

David rewound the tape so that the three could listen again.

"'_Okay. I guess he's earned this,'" emerged from that husky female voice. "'Professor Eppes, your brother wants to hear from you.'"_

"'_Don?'" A pause for a breath. "'Don, sea pie—'"_

"There!" Don said. "'Sea pie.' What did Charlie mean? 'Sea pie'?"

"He was giving us a clue," Megan mused, trying to decipher the meaning. "Sea? Is he by the ocean? Near a pier?"

"Not a chance. Look at the map where the call came from." David pointed. "He's several miles away from the shoreline. How about 'pie'? There are a few bakeries in those blocks. Not ones that get shining recommendations from the Department of Health, but they stay in business."

Don thought. There was something missing, something not right with what his team was saying, something that didn't really fit…

"Numbers," he finally said. "Charlie is obsessed with numbers. They're what he notices."

David's eyes narrowed. "'Sea pie' is not a number."

"Not 'sea'. 'C'. Like a variable. Charlie's always talking about variables, and those are represented by letters."

"Speed of light? Isn't that what 'C' represents?" David cast about, hunting in his memory for the answer.

"That's physics, not just a number. What is the speed of light? A hundred and eighty six thousand miles per some unit of time? How does that help?" Don too was trying to correlate the information.

"How about 'pie'?" Megan pursued. "What does that mean?"

Don reached back into his own high school math classes. He hadn't been bad at the subject but he'd hated numbers on principle; Charlie was so good that he'd outshone Don without even trying. Then those same teachers would look at Don and wonder why he couldn't be even half as good as his little brother…

"Not 'pie'. Not apple pie. 'Pi', that mathematical constant that gets used in figuring out stuff about circles." The memory came hard. "It's a number. It's a number that keeps on going, that has lots of numbers in it…" he trailed off.

"Pi." David nodded with grim triumph. "Three point one four one and oh, damn, I forget the rest. I can figure it out, I think. You divide seven into twenty one; no, twenty two…" he trailed off.

"But what does it mean?" Megan asked. "Why would Charlie be telling us to think about circles? This is tougher than any of those codes that the suspect sent."

"But it has to mean something," David declared. "Charlie wouldn't have said those words otherwise."

"What would Charlie have seen that would have those numbers? Not just those numbers, but those numbers preceded by the letter 'C'?" Don already knew the answer. "A license plate. Partials: California plates Charlie three one four one and who knows how many digits are part of pi. We look in those twenty blocks," and he pointed to David's map, "for a vehicle with those plates. You," and the next finger aimed at Megan with her arm still in its sling, "stay behind. Run the plates, correlate any possibles with students that Charlie's flunked in the last few years. Failed themselves," he corrected himself, looking at David.

_Let's not fail Charlie_.


	12. Failure 12

_At least one of us is comfortable_.

It wasn't Charlie. Hanging from one's arms had definite disadvantages; he had come to that conclusion early on. Little Miss Bitch was making certain that Charlie had ample opportunity to test and re-test that hypothesis. She hadn't bothered with that electric stick thing any more; it was as though she'd sated herself for the moment. That was okay. That was more than okay; Charlie could live for the rest of his life without feeling that agony zap through him. The throbbing in his leg more than made up for the current lack of current—Charlie laughed dizzily to himself at the turn his thoughts were taking—and the only other thing that kept running through his brain was his father admonishing him to keep his leg elevated. That the doctors had told him to do that, to help the leg heal. _Not following doctor's orders, are we, Dad? Sorry. Maybe I can do better next time. Assuming there'll be a next time_.

He hoped his father was all right. He hoped that the two FBI bodyguards that Don had assigned to the house were okay. None of them had looked good when the woman slapped an oxygen mask over Charlie's face and told him to hustle. Alan Eppes was no longer a young man, and Charlie worried about him. All Charlie could hope for was that Don had gotten there in time. That the gas wasn't lethal. That his father wasn't dead. That Charlie himself wasn't going to end up in that category. _And here I thought being a consultant was just some easy money and a great way to make a difference in this world. Learning a few new things here, aren't we?_

_Look around. Look for a way out_. That's what his older brother had taught him, the few times that he'd been allowed to talk about some of his cases that Charlie hadn't been a part of. Charlie tried to focus on his surroundings: thick steel walls, a tall ceiling with beams across it with a rope hanging down that he was attached to so that his toes didn't quite touch the cold steel floor. Meat locker, that's what it was. An abandoned meat locker in an abandoned restaurant. Solid metal door that screams wouldn't go through. Just the place to keep an unwilling math professor…

The door was propped open far enough so that he could see his tormentor lounging in the kitchen. Dust covered most of everything, and the grill had a definite tilted look to it that suggested a very good reason why the place had been abandoned. No knives that he could see; a blessing. He'd put Don through enough blood-letting. The mere thought made him nauseous. Every now and again she'd look over at him with a thoughtful glare, and he'd try to make himself as small and as harmless-looking as possible. The stick thing that she'd used sat on the table, gleaming in the dirty light, the revolver that she'd initially threatened him with in the house beside it.

Had Don gotten the message? In mystery stories the victim always gave a clue as to where they were, and the hero of the story solved the clue just in the nick of time. Well, this wasn't a mystery story, and while his brother had his own set of smarts, math wasn't his strong suit. Of course, neither was it this woman's, otherwise she wouldn't have failed Charlie's course. It wasn't a tough course, but it did require work. Math was not an easy topic; nothing worthwhile ever was. But put in the time and the effort, and she could have gotten at least a 'C', enough to keep going. Charlie would have helped her if only she'd asked. He'd done that for other students. Look at the Daniel kid, and Ethan who was Charlie's own age. Ethan had taken time out for military service, was going to school on the GI bill. Ethan was no fool. He'd asked for help, and Charlie had been more than happy to give it to him. Gotten a 'B', too, if Charlie remembered correctly, and now was majoring in math. Aced the later course he'd taken with Langston.

_Thoughts are wandering. Gotta focus. 'C Pi'. Gotta figure out how to help Don help me. That's the way things work._

* * *

"Blue sedan, California license plates Charlie three one four one eight Delta Delta, registered to a Jennifer Tilby," David whispered, closing his cell phone and slipping it into his pocket. "DMV issending a head shot over to my phone but it'll take a few minutes for the bytes to get through." 

"Which matches one of the names on Megan's list." Don was grimly pleased. He shrugged into the bullet proof vest that he routinely kept in the back of the Suburban. "Not the nicest of neighborhoods for Ms. Tilby to live in. Which house do you think she's camping out in? She's not registered in any of 'em. Maybe a squatter."

"Made a drug bust six months ago right over there," Colby agreed from the back seat, jerking his thumb at a rowhouse with overgrown weeds as decoration. The windows had been boarded up again by the absentee landlord. A 'For Sale' sign had been stuck into a clump of dandelions. "You think she's in there? The other homes look occupied."

Don considered. "Not there. Walls are a little thin. Someone would have heard Charlie." _Heard Charlie screaming_, a little voice whispered inside his head. He put the thought away with as much force as it required to do the job. "We need a place where she won't be noticed."

"The car is in front of that restaurant," David pointed out, scanning an old hole in the wall sort of eatery. 'Buffalo Wings' the falling down sign said. The front window was intact but the side one had been boarded up with a shattering of old glass on the ground below. Weeds neatly covered up the broken part so that he couldn't tell just where the glass had given in. A small portrait of a chicken with its wings still attached hung upside down in the front window as someone's idea of a rancid joke. The yellow that smeared the bricks outside could either have been paint or old mustard. David decided not to investigate that part. "Damn, that was a good place to eat. Knew the guy who ran the place when I did some undercover work a couple of years back. Never wanted to look at the Department of Health inspection sheets, though, and not just because it was out of character for my cover."

"Too open," Don thought. "You can see right in through the front window. This kind of neighborhood, people take notice. They don't call us or the cops, but they notice. Tilby wouldn't want that."

"There's a back kitchen." David disagreed. "There's a pantry. Want me to check it out?"

Don cast his gaze around the area. David was right. Most of the homes looked occupied: a plant pot here, even one lawn neatly manicured with a whirligig standing still with no breeze to set it in motion. Most of the places were as run down as this restaurant but they were occupied and showed it. Several had bikes chained to front porches and a couple boasted 'beware of the dog' signs with leashes on the ground to signify that the signs were not just for show. This was not the type of neighborhood that an ex-college student would go for. Where ever Tilby was, it had to be a temporary and makeshift location. Which meant that the abandoned restaurant was the best option. "Do it."

Protective coloring: David pulled off his own bullet proof vest and the white shirt and tie beneath it. The tee shirt stayed but the belt went. From the kit that he'd thrown in to the back of the Suburban he pulled out a bandanna that he tied around his head. The vest got tied onto his waist, looking like an old camo jacket that was too hot to wear. In a few moments David had transformed himself into a local denizen, worthy of no more than a passing glance. "I'll be back."

David slouched down to the end of the block before turning and slipping behind the buildings, crossing through what passed for back yards and back alleys. He spoke into his radio. "So far, no signs of life from the front. No lights, but there's plenty of sunshine. She won't need any lights to see."

Don looked at his watch. Three fifty two. Eight more minutes, if the bitch was on time with her call. He'd already arranged for it to be forwarded to his cell sitting in his pocket. He'd talk to her all day if he had to, give his people time to locate her.

"Coming up into the back alley of the restaurant. No trash, nothing to say that anyone's using this place. Wait a minute." Don's heart stopped. "Looks like some fresh scratches on the back door lock. Someone jimmied their way in. No way to tell if it's our girl, or if it was some homeless type looking for a place out of the rain."

"Unlocked?"

"Yes." A moment of silence. "I can't hear anything inside. No movement, nothing." More heart stoppage. "But, Don, there's fresh dirt out here. I think this place has been used, and recently." Heart restarted.

"We're checking it out," Don decided. There wasn't much time left. "David, give me five minutes, and then make your way inside. Colby and I will be coming in from the front. Colby, have LAPD people take their places. Tell 'em not to be seen."

"On it."

There wasn't much he could do about keeping a low profile in this neighborhood. White dude in a suit and bullet-proof vest, gun in hand—he and Colby both stood out like a couple of federal sore thumbs. Out of the corner of his eye he saw more than one curtain get pulled back from the surrounding homes. Couldn't be helped. _Not after you druggie types. Got bigger fish to fry at the moment. _

Moment of truth. Don hoped that David had taken a moment to put his own bullet-proof vest back on, hoped that it wouldn't be needed. He peered in through the window. David was right: there were footsteps on the checkerboard floor inside, and they looked fresh in the thick dust. Aware of Colby watching him, he gently tried the handle to the front door.

_Unlocked!_ Grim satisfaction. Something was going right. It was about damn time. He could have picked it, to ensure a silent entry with the warrant, but this was better. Safer. Faster. He risked another quick look at his watch: three fifty seven. He eased himself forward, Colby in his wake.

Once inside, he froze for a moment to take in his surroundings and let his eyes adjust to the diminished light. A half dozen tables dotted the place, two with broken legs, only four with chairs surrounding them. Three counter stools remained, one taking a nap on the floor. Dust prevented the full force of the afternoon sun from pounding through the front window but he could still see the multitude of tracks where someone had trod back and forth. There were footprints that looked stumbling, a spot where a knee had hit the floor with a handprint beside it. Another was a sloppy line in the dust where something—or someone—had been dragged. Don could guess who those belonged to. This chick had much to answer for. He moved toward the back of the restaurant.

And froze. A voice floated on the air.

"Just about time, Professor Eppes. Think your brother wants to hear from you?"

Mumble.

"What was that?"

_Szzt_. Cry of pain.

"Pay attention when I'm talking. Isn't that what you always said, professor?" Mocking. Don felt his hand clench on his gun, forced himself to relax. _Move closer. Closer._

"Screaming seemed to work real well on big brother, didn't it? Wonder how the sound of a gunshot would do? Think it might upset him? Got something on you, professor, that I can shoot off? Wouldn't want to waste a bullet into the air. Maybe a flesh wound. Always wanted to say that: flesh wound. Can't put it into this leg. The cast would get in the way."

Don could see her in the metal sheeting of the thick meat locker door. The reflection was blurry, but he could make out shapes. He froze yet again, knowing that movement would attract her attention. From out of sight, David too came up to join them. There was no way out for the suspect. The meat locker was enclosed, a dead end. Colby signaled: _the place is surrounded by LAPD. She's not getting out, even if she gets past us._

_Good. Time to finish this_. Don held up his hand. _On the count of three: one—_

His phone buzzed in vibrate mode. Flash of inspiration: he stepped forward. "Calling me?"

The look of shock and horror was worth it. Big blue eyes got bigger, and the jaw dropped so that it fell below the shoulder-length dirty blonde hair.

"FBI," he snapped, pistol in the approved position. "Hands in the air, now!" He sensed more than saw David and Colby come up behind him, their own guns trained on the suspect.

But Jennifer wasn't finished yet. Her gun was in her own hand, and she slipped behind her victim, using Charlie as a shield. She put the gun to his ribs. "Back off, or I'll kill him!" she yelled.

She'd do it, Don knew. Knew it as well as if profiler Megan Reeves was at his elbow, whispering instructions.

_Talk. Negotiate. But under no circumstances let her get away_. Rule Number Two in the FBI handbook of Hostage Negotiations. Once the bitch was in a car and driving away, Charlie would be as good as dead.

"There's no way out," he told her. Beside him he could feel both David and Colby biting their tongues, letting him take the lead. Wondering if it was the wise choice; _you're going to have to live with the consequences of your words, Don Eppes. If she kills him, you'll have that nightmare for the rest of your life_. _You _and _your father_. "If you put the gun down, you can walk out of here. You haven't murdered anyone. Don't start now." Don hoped that was true. He couldn't see his brother breathing. Was Charlie still alive? Don couldn't spare the attention to check. "You can still get out of this without a murder one charge. Don't be stupid."

"I'm not stupid!" It was the wrong button to push. "I'm not stupid! You are! _You_ needed help to solve my riddles! _He_ was the one to solve them, not you. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" She jammed the gun into Charlie's side, eking out a grunt.

_Okay, he's alive. Let's see if we can keep him that way_.

"You're right, I'm the stupid one. You showed me." Don eased his way to the left, inch by inch, hoping she wouldn't notice. Good chance; this chick was losing it. Pupils dilated, nostrils flaring. Hands shaking. Another minute, and the gun would start waving. Or go off. _Careful, Eppes_…

"It's time to make up another riddle," Don coaxed. He settled into himself, went icy inside. _Can't afford to let emotions get in the way_. All his attention was on the girl in front of him. This is what he knew how to do, what he had trained for. He put all the persuasion he was capable of into his voice. "I need a riddle to solve, a riddle to take to Professor Eppes, show him how smart you are. He was wrong to flunk you, wasn't he?"

"He was jealous of me! He flunked me because he knew I was smarter than he was!"

"He was jealous," Don agreed. Another inch. Another sliver of body available for his bullet to slam into, but not yet enough for a clean shot. "But you showed him. You sent riddles for him to solve." Side-step to the left. "It's time for another riddle. Have you thought of another riddle? Make Professor Eppes work for a change. Make him try to keep up with you."

Giggle. Mercurial change of mood. Don didn't need Megan to tell him that this girl was seriously over the edge and sinking fast. "I don't think he likes my riddles anymore. Do you, Professor Eppes?" She jabbed the gun into Charlie's side. Charlie coughed, his head hanging. "You need to wake up, Professor Eppes. That what you always said in class. 'Bring coffee' you said, 'but stay awake.' Wake up, Professor Eppes. Where's _your_ coffee?" She looked around. Don seriously considered taking a shot at her; _not yet, not yet. Not clear of Charlie yet. Another inch._

Jennifer Tilby looked at Don, her eyes clear and guileless. "He has to wake up," she told Don seriously. Sanity, like Elvis, had left the building. "I have to wake him up. It's time for class." She shifted her grip on the gun, index finger tightening.

"No!" Don yelled. And tightened his own finger on his own gun.

* * *

"I've got you, buddy." Don wrapped his arms around Charlie's waist, lifting the smaller man up so that his weight no longer rested on his arms tied over his head. Charlie stifled a groan, let his head rest on Don's shoulder. To one side David had dragged in a chair, was standing on it with his pocket knife in hand, sawing at the ropes that held the mathematician suspended. Behind them Colby had salvaged a tablecloth to toss over the body. It helped; the wide-eyed vacant look on Jennifer Tilby's face was gone even though they couldn't do much about the blood that was still slowly oozing out from underneath the eerily cheerful cloth. The gun had been kicked out of her hand and bagged in an evidence bag. None of them would take a chance that it might go off. It had been too close. 

The cattle prod lay open on the silver kitchen workspace, gleaming on top of the dusty surface. Don glared at it, glared at Colby: _cover it up_.

_Evidence, boss._ _Can't disturb it_. _Already did too much covering the body_. _Crime Lab's gonna pitch a fit._

"Let's get you out of here." David, ever the peace-maker, moved in. He sawed at the ropes that bound Charlie's wrists together, severing them as smoothly as he could and letting the man's arms down slowly before shouldering his side of mathematician. "Let's take him out front, Don, to wait for the ambulance."

"Don't…need…an ambulance," Charlie protested, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. The cast thunked onto the floor.

"I know you don't, buddy. We'll just let them check you out." Don maneuvered his brother past the table, blocking his view of both the checkerboard-covered body and the implements that she'd used on him.

"I ...can walk, you ...know. I'm ...fine, Don." Gasp for breath.Swallowed gruntwhen something touched the dusty floor that shouldn't have.

"Sure, you are, Charlie. This is just a precaution."

"What ...about Dad? There was ...gas…?"

"He's okay, buddy. Better than you, in fact. I'm bringing him home from the hospital tonight."

"Oh. Good." Charlie lurched, caught himself with a lot of help from the two men holding him upright. He blinked at the dusty light entering through the filthy front window. He blinked again, his eyes starting to roll backward. "Don?"

"Yes, Charlie?"

"I think ...I need to sit down now."

The two men caught him beforeCharlie could fall to the dust coveredfloor.

* * *

"Sit down, Dad. I've got it." Don irritably tried to wave at his father, prevent the older man from hoisting himself out of the easy chair that Don himself had put him in just a few moments ago. Don couldn't do it, couldn't wave; the result would be dropping the tray with the bowls of chicken soup ending up splattered all over the floor. _The wooden floor_, his father would remind him. _Don't ruin the wood by getting it wet_. "You were in the hospital last night after being almost gassed to death. You think I'm taking that lightly?" 

"Don't spill the soup," Alan Eppes replied testily. "I'm not in the mood to clean up after you. Did you add the sherry?"

"That's alcohol, Dad. I'm not giving you and Charlie alcohol."

"The alcohol evaporates away as it heats. It's good for you. How about the garlic?"

"That's supposed to keep away a cold, Dad," Charlie put in from his spot on the sofa. He adjusted the throw over himself, covering over the cast and his bare toes. "The garlic prevents anyone from getting close."

"Nonsense. Your mother always put garlic into her chicken soup. Who am I to interfere with tradition? Put the tray onto the coffee table, Donnie. Did you bring coasters? Napkins, at least? You want to ruin the finish?"

"Dad, the wood's already ruined," Don said. "Charlie did that when he was twelve."

"Hey, you splashed stuff on it two years before that—"

"Which Mom had refinished, and then when you did it, didn't bother to have it re-finished again. Said she'd wait until we were both out of the house. Little did she know that you'd go ahead and buy the place. You're never moving out." Loved having the last word, Don thought.

Not a chance. "This is terrible," his father announced, putting his spoon down. "Didn't I teach you to cook?"

"No, Dad, you didn't. Mom did, and she gave up on him in disgust," Charlie slipped in.

"I can tell," Alan added, as a knock interrupted them.

Don froze, his hand automatically drifting toward the gun in his shoulder holster. It didn't help that both his father and Charlie also stiffened. Don deliberately relaxed; they were supposed to feel safe in this house. "Who is it?"

"Pizza delivery."

Don relaxed all the way. He'd recognize David Sinclair's voice anywhere. He pulled open the front door to greet the crowd of FBI agents. "What's the matter? You think I can't take care of my father and brother?"

David came in with two boxes of pizza, Megan and Colby behind him with their own bags. "Don, in all the time that I've known you, you've never cooked. You're about as domestic as a timber wolf. I'd trust you at my back with a gun, but not with a spatula."

"And a little bird told me that cooking is not your forte," Megan smiled. "In, fact, that same little bird begged to be rescued."

"I'm a great cook," Don lied. "I've been doing it for years." He glared at Charlie. "You were supposed to be taking a nap."

"You know all the take-out joints in L.A.," Colby disagreed. "You've told me about most of them."

"So I microwave a mean leftover," Don protested. "You bring the papers over?"

"Papers?" Alan raised his eyebrows. "What papers?"

"Report stuff, Dad. I may have a few days off, but the reports still need to be filled out."

"You don't need to take the time off for us, Donnie. Charlie and me, we can do just fine." Alan accepted a slice of pizza. "Better, in fact. This is good."

"Much better than the soup," Charlie added, casting a mischievous glance at his older brother. "You're as good at cooking as you are at solving codes. There are computer packages that handle that level of codes, you know. You don't need me."

"Stop flunking students, and it won't happen again," Colby joked, then hesitated. "Sorry, Charlie. I didn't mean it like that."

"No, it's okay." Charlie covered over the tremor by taking a bite of pizza. "You guys have the dangerous job. Overall, statistically, being a college professor is a very safe occupation. Very few of us get killed on the job. I should be fine for the rest of my life. I've had my close call." He gave a weak smile. "Just as long as they don't find the rest of those papers that were in my office before the explosion. That class doesn't contain some of my brighter pupils. At this point I welcome the opportunity not to have to grade them. I'm not sure I want to flunk anyone right now."

"'Professors don't fail students, students fail themse—'"

"David?"

"Yes, Charlie?"

"Shut up."

* * *

A/N: thank you, thank you, guys, for all the wonderful feedback! You really know how to make someone feel like they're doing a good job. I only hope the ending lived up to your expectations. Thanks again, OughtaKnowBetter 


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